great post on ways guy overcame problems when electo etching. detailed cool work!

I decided to give the saltwater etching a try last year, started with a cheap second hand laserjet, cost under £30 from Ebay- it still had enough toner for over 5,000 A4 prints, a car battery charger, a polyethylene box, and an iron.

First try was for a plate on my mobile phone cover:


Which worked first go!

After more tries, and fails, I've got the method down pat: the best paper to transfer from is shiny cheap colour newsprint; here in the UK I've found that the Radio Times works best; the brass has to be really, really REALLY clean first: I clean it with Scotchbrite, get it almost to a dull shine, before cleaning it with lighter fluid until the kitchen towel stops picking up black from the brass, I also found that an iron just didn't heat evenly enough, so I tried a cheap hot laminator: I just run the print and the thin brass through it a few times, until it's stuck firm, and finish it off with the iron. The paper comes off after a soak in hot (not boiling!) water, then dip it into the saltwater solution with the positive side attached to the brass plate, and the negative side to a length of copper pipe, I just keep checking to see how it's going.

For single-sided relief etching I coat the back side of the brass with rattlecan primer, and also don't clean off the oxide, which is a pretty good resist on it's own.

I've got braver, and even tried some double-sided etching, coming up with this:



Which when folded, makes this:


(LEGO man for scale)

Finally soldered on railings to make a 1/35 scale spiral staircase:



It's great fun; although I know a lot of this is useless for your tubular etching, let us know how you get on!