A NEW APPROACH TO ELECTRO-ETCHING

I would like to share my system of electro-etching that has been very successful. What you will need is a design or photo changed into a vector image by use of software that is either Coral Draw or Adobe illustrator. If you are not PC skilled, then you can bring your picture in jpeg format on a flash disk or CD to someone who can make the change for you. The picture is printed on a "Plotter", which is a special printer for cutting the design into foil. This machine uses the vector format to know precisely where to cut. Companies using "Plotters" make stickers, banners, and signs on trucks and cars.

The cutting blade on a "Plotter" is a small cylinder with a sharp blade inside. Its not necessary to buy a blade, but if you want a special or complex design (like our Kovlad logo in this tutorial) or a complex design smaller than 4cm x 4cm that you will want to purchase a smaller blade. The normal blade has problems cutting smaller pieces of foil. The blade costs around 30 Euros in my country.

Foils for the design are supplied by the printing company and come in many colors in matte or luster. Choose any you like, but ask for "tough" foil. I find gray the best. I have used shiny red foil, but the design came out torn and damaged. M2 foil is used for trucks and trailers and the scrap that is left is your best choice. M2 = square meters, so lots of square meters of foil is used on trucks and trailers. The cost of a few centimeters for your design will be irrelevant to the company. Make an enameled badge or sign for the company's boss and you will have free foils for the rest of your life!

                                     NOW LETS BEGIN!

STEP #1 - Cut the design from the foil which has been prepared on the Plotter printer.

STEP #2 & 3 - Use a sharp tool to remove areas exposed to etching.

STEP #4,5,6,7 - Take another piece of foil, big enough to cover your design, put it on the top and press together firmly.

STEP 8 & 9 - Remove both foils from the paper carefully

STEPS 10 & 11 - Transfer the design you want to etch onto a clean piece of copper (the copper piece is better cut in 4 angles not round) and smooth out all air bubbles and press hard.

STEPS 12 & 13 - Cover all other areas you don't wish to etch with foil and attach a long piece of copper wire to the back of the piece.

STEPS 14, 15, 16 - Use STAINLESS STEEL bowl (anode +) and a small amount of copper sulfate. A less saturated solution will etch longer but the result will be better. The solution should be warm.

STEPS 17 & 18 - Use two or more pieces of rubber to protect against short circuit. Keep the piece close to the bottom of the bowl and the etching process will be better.

STEPS 19 & 20 - Put the copper plate face down in the bowl, add a small amount of distilled water so that the solution will cover the design - Avoid covering the copper wire.

STEPS 21 & 22 - Use an old phone charger ( I am using a Nokia) or power unit. Most important is the voltage and amps. Here it is a 5.7V/800maH, the lower the better. Or use a professional DC power supply (Mastech) and 0.1V and 1 amp.

NOTE: HOW TO PREPARE A POWER UNIT FOR ELECTRO-ETCHING

(Using scissors, cut the connector at the end of the jack.

Inside the black plastic cable is (2) wires - white & black.

Cut the plastic cover lengthwise approx. 10 cm to expose the two cables (white and black cables usually) try not to cut the plastic cover on these two cables. Just strip off the outer black plastic cover.

Strip the white plastic cover around the wire approx. 3 cm from the white cable end. Do the same for the black wire. Both copper wires will be exposed.

Purchase in an electrical shop a clip (called a crocodile/alligator clip). Buy one RED clip and attach to the 3 cm length of copper from the white wire, a black clip for the black wire. Usually there is a small hole on the clip where you can pass the wire through and bind.

Plug the BLACK Crocodile clip the the Stainless Steel bowl and the WHITE clip to the etched copper piece.

STEP 23 - The black cable connect to the bowl and the white to the etched piece. Wash the piece under running water every 10-15 mins. to remove copper oxides that are being released by the etching process.

STEP 24, 25, 26 - After etching a few designs, you will see a copper plate that has formed on the bottom of the bowl. Just use a sharp tool to remove it. Sometimes it comes up in one piece.

STEP 27 - Remove all the foils from both sides and clean the copper.

STEP 28, 29, 30 - TADaaaa!! the result is here! The etched design is clear, no bubbles, and after 1 hour you can etch approximately 0.2-0.3mm depending on the solution and the voltage.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

Copper Sulfate is commonly used as a fungicide for grapes: http://enwikipedia.org/wiki/CuSO4, so you can find it in some gardening shops. The recipe depends on the sale of the piece, but for small scale up to 10/10cm, use 2-3 tablespoons and a mug or two of distilled water. Concentrated solutions work faster but undercut more - Weaker solutions work slowly but the lines come up sharp. So try to find your best recipe.

The Copper sulfate is TOXIC so don't drink it. You will die within 7 hrs. Store the solution in an airtight container. It is not an acid so if you touch it with your hands you can just wash it off but be as cautious as you would with any other chemicals.

The advantage of the Copper sulfate is that after 1 hour your etch will be approx. 0.2-0.3mm deep etch depending on the solution and voltage, but if you have a strong solution (deep blue color) and high voltage (say 8 volts or more) the etched material will be around 0.5mm deep or more.

 Note: You can also use PNP blue paper to cover the design, Syrian asphalt , nail polish, or common white sticker. But, as you can see, when you print the design on the Plotter, you can go into a lot of detail, such as my design of trees and snakes or anything else without any problems.

Feel free to ask any questions.

Rudolph, this is an excellent tutorial!  We have a small collection of electro-etching write-ups in the Champleve Notebook and now you have added some important new information.

Thank you Vera

I tried all what I found on internet and also here, but the main problem was how to make so complex design like the Kovlad logo is.I tried Syrian asphalt,nail polish but the result was awful.As a former truck driver I remembered how in our company they did this signs and letters on trucks:) And it works perfectly.I think there are also small cutting plotters for home use, but I don´t have experience with this type.

What type of DC power unit you use for your electro etching?

I use a full-size rectifier as a power unit.  It would have been expensive, but I bought it second-hand.  I think your use of the phone charger is very clever and I am going to make one just because I like it so much.

I wanted to mention that to see the additonal electro-etching information in the Champleve notebook, you have to click "see all" at the bottom of the page.  I have noticed that sometimes people tell me they are having a hard time finding things...

I have been using a very nice product that allows me to make complex, detailed designs also.  It is called Imag-on and it is a light sensitive film that you adhere to the metal, expose with a household CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulb and develop in sodium carbonate.  You create your image on the computer and print out a tranparency on a home printer to make the film that is exposed in contact with the Imag-on. 

I use the Imag-on to electro-etch both silver and copper and find it holds up very well.  You can buy Imag-on from Coral at enamelworksupply.com and she provides instructions on how to use it and make a cardboard box for exposure.  I have attached a photo that shows some detailed etching.

Thank you Vera

I had read all the tutorials here and all are excellent.

I found some informations about electro etching gold and brass.

http://chestofbooks.com/reference/Henley-s-20th-Century-Formulas-Recipes-Processes-Vol2/Electro-Etching.html

Anybody tried etching gold with gold chloride?

R.

Rudolph, Enjoyed your tutorial very much.  I knew one could rig a phone charger to work, but you are the first person who has explained it in a way that I feel comfortable following the instructions.  Thanks!

You are welcome Quinnan.

Yesterday I used plastic container put stainless steel sheet on the bottom and etch copper cross around 12cmx 10cm.Everything works good also for large scale objects.

Rudolph, your plastic container should be fine for etching.  I have found that not all plastics are equal, however.  A cheap, dime store variety (I usually use cereal box sizes) that has held a saturated salt etching solution is showing quite a bit of pitting after only 2 years, while a Tupperware brand "cereal keeper" has held the traditional (not electro-etch) Edinburgh Etch (ferric chloride based solution) for over 20 years and, other than discoloration, is as good as new.  The same containers are used for etching and storing.  You can get different sizes of Tupperware containers fairly inexpensively on ebay.com 

Feedback on converting a power supply for electro-etching: My junk box contained several old phone chargers and they all had a 5V output, so there were choices.  I selected a Blackberry charger because I could see that it had two separate wires in the line (I'm sure the others do too, but this was obvious).  After cutting off the end to expose the wire, I was disappointed to see no color-coded sheathes, so I didn't know which wire was positive or which was negative.  If there is an easy way to check this, will someone please share.   What I did was to attach one alligator clip to each of the two wires as you would if you knew that one was positive and the other negative.  I thought, what the heck, I'll either be electroplating or etching and I'll soon find out.  Since I use a plastic cereal box, my system is a little different than the one shown here in that I hook the metal pieces (the anode and the cathode) over the sides of the box so that they are facing each other.  When I plugged in the power supply, it took only a few seconds looking down over the top of the box to see the directional flow of the liquid leaving one plate and traveling toward the other.  That was my answer.  The Cathode (the catcher) clearly was receiving the flow and the Anode (the Artwork) was being etched.  Now all I need is some electrical wire to cover the exposed joint where the wires are attached.  Thanks again, Rudolph, for sharing your technique.  This is a good cost saver.

Quinnan I am not sure what happened if you plug black cable to copper and white to stainless steel, I´ve never tried it.

But I am happy that your charger works well. Next I will try to etch fine silver so I will post the results in few weeks.

Rudolf