Etching (large area/ axe head)

[TurboGirl]

Well, Sasquatch has me all fired up with his wonderful blade (seen on his thread 'Finally One For Me' but even more gorgeus in real ife!). I've been doing a thread takeover so thought I'd be better starting one myself

The basic requirement is for a fairly deep etch on a trail hawk hatchet mod (see thread here). Here's the designs- they're big and very girly but its the techniques and theory I want to get sorted really

Tother side....

I've used it as a playaround for my new dremel-alike to polish up certain areas to create highlights and want the etch to be deep shadow and pick out the delineations and lines. In deciding how best to go about this, I feel I need to consider adaptions to Chads brilliant knife blade techniques so have loads of questions! Oh, and I'll add a resource link list at the end to add my ever-growing information/ confusion sources

Much gratitude for any input, theoretical or experienced on large blade etching!

Q- Is it the amperage that removes the metal? I was thinking that plugging myself into the mains via an old mobile charger would actually be a safer ampage than the car battery but if its the 'line abreast army' that does the work, guess that'd be out of the question. Although the 9v batts can't push the amps out and they work....

Q- Definately very interested in the other resist materials, specially as I'm working large scale and girly nail products are about a fiver a pop for a piddly few mls! I'm guessing they are the product of choice as they're designed to be fairly flexible so don't 'spall' off/ seperate from the metal and produce a weep between solution and resist (and having scratched the design, tis good to be able to see through it a little)... so I'm gonna try the other side of my test axe with other cellulose based paint.

Q-Does anyone have a linky for large area etches?

Q-Seriously now, Guys, a CAR battery... or am I being 'Blonde'?! Last time I (accidentally) shorted one of those, I melted a spanner so I don't think a cotton wool bud is gonna be man enough for the job I presume its important that its a natural ie non melty fibre?

Q- I'm presuming be REAL careful theres no way it can find an earth so a good pair of rubber wellies, good ventilation... first aider on call.... any other safety bases to cover?

Q- Does the salt water have to be at its strongest solution ie any more granules just sit at the bottom?

Q- Does the strength of solution and current affect the depth of the etch as well as the time spent on one area?

Q-I presume if I'm practicing it should be on a similar weight of steel to get a good comparison or doesn't this matter?

LINKY LIST- I'm sure this will be added to
Navaching's etching page which has a good theoretical explaination and wiring diagrams for a simple potentiometer (There's another etching machine making tute at Chris Crawfords site too)

British Blades have a thread about etching different metals (eg Stainless steel) here.. it covers a plethora of other associated subjects

Dip etch steamppunk stylee using laser printer on glossy inkjet paper

An Instructables thread... the comments cover quite a bit of theory and some folks have posted their practice pieces

Theres a tute and interesting, simply put information about alternate etching using newspaper/ magazine as the toner on printed circuit boards here (the image needs to be mirrored for this technique)

I was interested to read on this BB thread that if you swap the poles, you electroplate the design.... presumably careful choice of positive terminal and experimentation could provide another design dimension It's main OP was about 'Etching the Bushblades way' and it's a grand thread ref Press N Peel technique.

Custom Bladeworks use a light sensitive chemical technique... I may not be trying this one here, it seems a bit of a faff but it's interesting and possibly apt for makers/ high outputters.

Nice in depth tute from a jewellry maker- it covers various larger dip etches on alternate metals.

 

[mountainm]

I still think a standard 9v or 12v lamp battery and a cotton wool pad - (plus some patience) will do a grand job.

Practice on something first.

Wax may be a suitable resistive coating.

 

[sasquatch]

Get a practice piece and just go for it Sal! It doesn't take long. The 9 volt is low but it just speeds up the process of the salt eating the steel I guess? I only mix up a tiny bit of boiled water and throw a couple good pinches of sea salt in and give it a mix.

The more you go over it the deeper it gets. A practice piece would be a good idea to see what works to get the desired effect and gives you a chance to practice the scratching of your pattern as well.

The car battery etches I read about were dips, not dabbing with cotton wool. They sounded a bit advanced for my feeble brain and tools at hand. The cold steel hawk head isn't that big, it really won't take long to get the desired effect you're after. I doubt you need to go as deep as you think, it really doesn't take much to get a decent pattern going! Once you dremel polish the proud surface it'll really pop out from the background...

 

[plastic-ninja]

If you want to get technical with the etching check out the Steampunk forums.
They do seem to do an awful lot of etching on their amazing machines.
You may find it too complicated to bother for one project though.
Simon

 

[TurboGirl]

...plus some patience....

I'm afraid I'm a wee bit testicularly challenged to have 'patience' But the wax is a fine idea, I might add a little area to the other side of my old kindling axe that I'm using as a trial piece.

P-Ninja, I saw a steampunk etch (dipped, unfortunately) using a laser printer on inkjet glossy paper and ironed onto the piece to make the toner stick... they wet the back of the paper and lifted it off, leaving the toner in place, a top resist tip I wish my sons plotter was up and running, I think the cut vinyl sounds the way forward for speed and repeatability.

 

[TurboGirl]

I've had a playaround with etching today on an old kindling axe I've abused for years I'm finally killing off a knackered car battery to do it- there was a bit of sparking when the pad got really thich with oxidised crud but I'm still (surprisingly) alive.

Heres the set up, positive to ground the blade-

Starting the etch- I went over it quite a few times, holding the bud on for 10secs in each location before moving on. Time consuming ain't the word, I might look into dip etching at this rate, being an impatient lass

I like the way the oxidised residue marks the resist so its pretty easy to see where you been. The success of the nail varnish technique is that you can see through it at all stages and it didn't appear to spall off in areas where it had been scratched, so pretty good!

Etching completed...

And the blade wiped with acetone

Next side will be using the wax resist and trying to get a thicker etch going... benefits included being able to mark the blade 1st, then I rubbed on wax cold and melted it gently over the hob to get even coverage. I'll scratch out wil ballpoint this time as Sasquatch suggests to fatten out those details on lettering

 

[TurboGirl]

Mmmm, the wax resist was a lot easier except when it came to cleaning it off! Here it is under processing...

And heres the cleaned face. Using a blade to scratch off the resist wax was a lot nicer than the needle but it hasn't made much better a job- the etch is hard to gauge for depth on a larger area too but it went pretty well for a tryout

I need to get much neater or to design using my inherent flaws into consideration

Looking closer, although its a good easy method, theres tons of bleed through where the resist has come off the cleaned metal..... grrrrrrr!!

 

[Biker]

Looking good Sally. Needs tidying up for the next job though.

I read somewhere that Letraset also works quite well. Basically you put on the words where you want them to go then use the etching techinque on the area not covered by the lettering. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong in this suggestion as I could have the Letraset thing ar$e about face with this method of etching.

 

[mountainm]

That's how i did mine. But you etch around the letters. Works great

 

[TurboGirl]

It looks a really nice technique- crisp, clean and easier than any sane person would like to admit to Thats why I want Eldests' plotter running, I think it would be very similar. I'm not neat enough to attack the trail hawk yet for sure, so I might have to do my yard axe.... thinking of your letraset process, it sounds along the same lines as the steampunk link where they use a laser printer to print the artwork onto laserject glossy paper, iron it on like mad then soak the water off the back, so I'm going to see if I can source the wherewithall... Biker will understand my thinking, I'm sure he'll be a font hussy too

 

[Biker]

Glad I wasn't a complete numpty remembering the Letraset thing. Very crisp Mike.

Hey Sal, you want fonts? Well here's my preferred choice of where to get fonts, at least to have a look at if I need a bit of lettering inspiration:

http://www.blambot.com/fonts.shtml

Choose the link you need and follow that white rabbit down the hole, it's wonderland in there.

Now that I've seen what you can do with a battery on a bit of iron I'm toying with the idea of recreating that Berserker head I carved yesterday on something in an etched format.

I wonder too if dabbing on the nail varnish and then using a fine paint brush paint dipped in acetone onto the larger areas you want the varnish removed, or would the acetone creep under the nail varnish and bleed the design? Anyway worth a try I think.

 

[mountainm]

You can actually get special permanent markets to help etch circuit boards - maybe worth investigating?

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=et...uiEvGR0QWC58XrAQ&ved=0CHsQrQQ&biw=320&bih=533

 

[bilmo-p5]

Lotsafonts here too, TG.

 

[TurboGirl]

Ooooh, a Biker sculpture of a berserker? Is there a link/ pic or do we have to wait and see on an etch I had a trawl around blambot, very nice... and lots of freebies too, MOST excellent! Dafont is my usual stop, Bilmo, Eldest put me on to them when he was doing vehicle graphics, I agree, its a top site!

Mountainm.... that looks a BRILLIANT idea... I'll get one and trial it, we have a Maplins nearby. I might submit in the name of investigation to a sheet of Press n Peel too although not sure how to iron it onto an axe head with more curves than our Betty... but I WILL overcome!

*EDIT- I found an older assistant at Maplins who makes his own PCBs so he was a veritable mine of information... apparently the bigest danger is explosion from hydrochlorine gas which is produced so keep well ventilated, not enclosed and nowhere near the acitone etc I've purchased Press n Peel and a resist pen from them, the PnP would have been much cheaper off ebay tho *

Thank you for your valuable ideas and input, lads

 

[shaggystu]

ironing to curved surfaces - find yourself a nice piece of central heating system you can get to, hot water pipe from the boiler probably being the easiest, and away you go. simples

 

[TurboGirl]

I took the bull by the horns tother day and in a fit of frustration, charged ahead with a nail varnish resist on the trail hawk as the press n peel and toner rely on a very thorough ironing which I couldn't get sufficiently well bonded to be sure there were no gaps for the saline solution to find. I'm convinced that the best method for a curvy surface would be dipped but speaking to my son, who does a lot of fancy artwork on his plotter, the fine lines of my designs woudn't adhere well enough either, so blocky shaped designs would be a prerequisite. A combination of using that as a resist then spraying over and removing the vinyl to create a dip etch pattern would in hindsight, have been the best way forward.

Here's the result of side 1- I'm going to leave the second (arty) side as I ,ight try something else on it in the fullness of time- meanwhile, I want to play with my axe!

The saline did discolour metal under the resist a bit- I have to polish the resist areas back and add the mosaic pin in place of the grub screw which will make an interesting pupil. In the interests of safety, I've made a functional little blade sheath too which is on the trail hawk mod thread

 

[bilmo-p5]

And who wouldn't want to play with a tasty axe like that. Whatever you might think, I think it looks very good as it is. Well done!

 

[Biker]

Like I said in the Modifying a ColdSteel Hawk thread, that is really VERY good Sal. Getting itching fingers to have a go at it myself now. My axes are all packed over at the new place, so I htink a drive over there and dig thorugh the boxes could be in order... or I could play it cool and do it later in the year when I know what I'd want to etch into one of them.

Very nice work Sal. Any tops tips and hints you can pass on would be most helpful.

Ta

 

[TurboGirl]

I think the inspiration is the hardest thing to find sometimes, other times it just drops into your hands unbidden- which is what happened to me with an art deco book of design: the illustrations were all black and white which made them extremely easy to mentally translate to an etch/resist pattern Having said that, this 'turbogirl' side was a product of the axe suggesting the shape. I'm looking forward to tweaking it a bit to pick out high relief areas but I have a billhook and a scythe sheath to make first, then some playtime learning how to use them all impressively... at least then I'll have increased my understanding of the design of these fascinating bladey things!

Thank you, Ian and Aaron, I can't tell you how supportive your positive words are. I'm loving playing around with these projects and sticking them on a thread Start with older, not so precious practice pieces and get involved, Aaron, it's a fabulous (if rather time consuming!) medium If I was starting etching again, I'd go for some flat blades 1st (eg billhook, blades) and try out the different techniques like battery & nail varnish/ spray paint 1st, then Press n Peel with toner, then move to the curvy items like axes. The design of the artwork seems to be very important to get right for the effect wanted but scratchy built up lines are very suggestive of a sketchy woodcut style and give a good shading effect, whereas for a block of area I'd've been better to use a dip etch. Course I can't trial that on this blade now I've done 1 side Aaron, if you want a sheet of Press N Peel, I have 5 if you wants one? I bet you'll be the guy with access to a good laser printer

 

[Biker]

Thanks for the offer Sal' Yes please for a sheet of press and peal. Though the laser printer is beyond my reach financially right now. I might be able to get my mate who works in the UK at a college to see if they have one in one of the departments.

I'll PM you my details etc. Thanks for the advice and prezzie Hon'.