Brass etch update: we have some success!

Using Canon laser toner certainly helped, but I also after some further reading found that someone was recommending running the brass and press-n-peel sandwich through the laminator 25 to 50(!) times. I settled for around 10 (I didn’t actually count) with my modified high temp laminator and that seems to have given a good result. Out of interest though I will try again with the Brother toner and a higher number of passes.

Here’s the progress shots. This is the press-n-peel film with the artwork printed onto it, next to a nice clean piece of copper:

The press-n-peel is then placed on top of the brass sheet and the two run through the lamintor several times. It’s then quenched in water and the press-n-peel peeled off. This leaves you with the top half of the next picture:

You then cover the back of the brass with something to protect it (I used packing tape which seems to have worked well) and drop it into a bath of etchant (I use ferric chloride). The etchant was a bit old so it took ages (which also adds the danger of over etching parts) but in the end I ended up with the bottom half of the above pic.

That mottled effect of the brass really isn’t as pronounced in person and isn’t a problem. The etching depth wasn’t as deep as I’d have liked so I will test a new piece with fresh etchant to see if I can’t get better results. I will hit this piece with some Mr surfacer though (the brass etch is too fine to risk praying anything from a rattle can onto it) and see just how (in)appropriate this depth is.

The really stupid thing is that after all of this, it turns out that the smallest icon size I made is just slightly too big for where I was thinking of fitting it on the pelvis armour! D’oh! I might just stick one of the bigger icons in a different spot…

While I was waiting for the etching process I also built a stand for testing out torso sculpting but I forgot to take a pic. Will do that tonight 😉

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