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This video shows how I use salt water, a power supply, and a stick on label to mark aluminum and steel. This procedure should be done in a well-ventilated room or outside.
If you are interested, please see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaaNeMckMR0
Your comments are welcome. All of us are smarter than any one of us.
Thanks,
Rick
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Hey Rick, I’ve tried doing this but I had my electrodes backwards. Would you say that that would make a difference or do you need to do it with them the way you did it. Also if you used a material specific electrolytes as your medium, do you think the results may be deeper or not?Quote:
Originally Posted by rgsparber
Thanks,
Mike S.
Mike,Quote:
Originally Posted by Suttmike1
The polarity is critical. The target metal must be positive relative to the salt water soaked Q-tip.
I have not tried different electrolytes but would very interested to know of liquids that would cut deeper into aluminum and also steel.
Rick
I do understand that in the commercial electric etching provides electrolytes for the base metal you are etching. I’ll get some and try it. It has to work better or why would they include them in the kits?? Thanks for the reply. I’ll switch my electrodes and see if that makes a difference for me. What voltage are you using and are you using a power supply or batteries?
Thanks,
Michael
Michael,Quote:
Originally Posted by Suttmike1
I'm using a 20V at up to 2 amps power supply. Be very careful using batteries that can put out more than that. For example, do not use a car battery.
Rick
I'm going to try this! I have a vinyl cutter so making templates is a breeze!
Thanks for sharing!
Sounds very promising. Please keep us posted.
Rick
Hi rgsparber,
I have tried different ways for the making of electrode.
A good one for me it was a piece of stainless steel rod a spring from pen a piece from cigarette filter and pvc tape.
But not the best, so later I replaced the filter with a piece of felt, which is more stable and has much longer lifetime before its polymerization begins.
Attachment 29653 Attachment 29654 Attachment 29655
If you can source AC after etching with DC it will darken the metal. In order to achieve this you would just have to run some wires of the transformer you are using prior to the diodes in your power supply.
This is a piece of hot rolled mild steel plate I electro-etched to about 1/16" depth. I made a stencil from heavy duty, self adhesive vinyl, attached an electrode to the back of the blank, attached the stencil, and sealed the rest of the blank, except the lettering, to confine the etch to just the letterforms. Instead of etching it with a swab, the entire blank was submerged in a tub of saturated brine, along with a separate electrode made from another piece of steel. If I'm not mistaken, the etch took about 30 minutes, but I don't have the details in front of me (time, voltage, polarity, and current). It was easy enough that this was just my first attempt after running a test piece, and it turned out nicely. When I get around to it, I want to try it on designs with both broader etched areas, as well as finer details.Attachment 40158
How did you cut the stencil?
Rick
I used a Cricut Maker machine. I believe I did the original layout in Adobe Illustrator, so I'd have more tools to get it just right (the typeface is Fontin). Getting this deep of an etch was right at the limits of what the vinyl adhesive would hold up to, but the test piece had a couple of spots where the vinyl separated enough to let the blank etch underneath. That was mostly because I wasn't perfectly careful about getting it well-adhered to the blank and making sure there were no air bubbles under the vinyl, especially at the edges.Quote:
Originally Posted by rgsparber
Came out pretty damn good!
