F-etching Copper - Metal working

Lots of pictures and lots of info in this one! I'm on another Facebook group called Aspiring Metalsmiths. I don't know about anyone else but Facebook is terrible about showing posts to me from the groups and people I am interested in. But recently, I happened to catch a post where someone was talking knowledgeably about etching copper sheets with ingredients most people have in their homes. I was immediately interested because I've seen some beautiful etching and have been wanting to try it but didn't want to buy caustic chemicals or special equipment. I have some 34 g copper sheets I've been holding onto for a while now and decided to give it a try. Mixed results - but the final result is the important  one! I hope you are a patient person because I go into some detail about this!

Apparently there was a coating on the "clear" side of the copper sheets I had. The other side had a bluish-green paint or something so I started on the side that looked like it didn't have a coating...erf. Then I made the mistake of trying to remove the coating on the etched side with 0000 steel wool instead of wet/dry sandpaper, which was a biiiig mistake....left a lot of scratches...so I started over on the other side of the sheets. Used sandpaper to take off the blue coating and restamped everything. Not a great picture but this shows how awful the first try was. :D

Fail!

I guess I should talk more about the method I used. Equal parts of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide - I was told 100 ml of each and 7 ml of salt, which is something like half a teaspoon, I gather. I am pretty sure I used more. I bought fresh supplies of vinegar and peroxide but had sea salt on hand.  The original person said to use iodized but an article I read said don't use iodized so I used what I had. :) The first attempt I tried with Staz-on ink and stamps only. It wasn't a total failure but I saw several sites that said using a Sharpie and/or Staz-on is not tough enough to survive this method, and I agreed after the first attempt's results. So the second try, I used a Versamark embossing pad (yep, same one I use with my fused glass technique!) and embossing powder with some of my many rubber stamps. The problem with using embossing powder is that it is hard to tell how deep the etching is.  I decided on a Christmas, my mermaid, my favorite tree stamp (as seen on many of my glass pendants!) and some other odds and ends stamps. 

This is my setup. Sea salt, vinegar, peroxide, takeout containers with lids (don't use the lids except for storage),  nitrile gloves, wooden stick for stirring, plastic bag for protecting the surface of my washer and under the bag, a heating pad...more about that later! NOT pictured (and not absolutely necessary): citric acid.

I did finish off my vinegar so I am using the empty bottle to store this solution in. The solution is blue in the photo above because I had already used it on my first failed attempt...it starts off rather clear! The blue is the dissolved copper in solution, believe it or not. I had been told there would be a LIGHT blue color so that tells you there is a LOT of copper in my solution! A word of caution....yes...these are household ingredients but once the copper is dissolved in the liquid, it is VERY TOXIC. Do NOT just pour this down the drain OR into the ground! Some said to take the solution and use it to make concrete with then throw the brick away. Others say you can clean the dissolved copper from the solution by submerging balls of aluminum foil in the solution, which then captures the pure copper and makes the liquid clear again but I haven't tried this to see if it works, yet! That sounds like the way to go, though. I have also been told you can just take it outside and let it evaporate, then dispose of the dried residue in a regular garbage landfill. You can also call your local garbage company and see what methods they recommend. Wear gloves, goggles, don't breathe it in, keep away from pets, and take any other precautions you think you should! Yes, it is less toxic than using other methods (like muriatic acid, etc) but does require sensible precautions!

Okay back to my experience with this science experiment! :D

I did this out in my laundry room because I think the solution is an irritant to breathe in. It should be stirred frequently and I believe this is because it tends to bubble up a bit and an area under the bubbles might not etch as well. Some use a cheap aquarium bubbler to agitate the solution but I did not go that route...yet. :) Do not use metal utensils or containers for this. I used a wooden popsicle stick and plastic containers I don't care about. Don't put a lid on it unless you want to transport or store the solution. I was impatient about this process and did two layers in each container...one face up and one face down. The directions for etching usually tell you to take a Sharpie around the edge of the metal so it won't get bumpy (which I did and which worked well) and put clear packing tape on the back or anywhere you don't want etched. Makes sense. Since I did mine twice (the coating preventing the etching from working well) the tape did not seal the already etched back well and I got some leakage. I didn't really care though since I plan to use these backed with other materials. I suspended one facedown, using the long tape ends to support it and keep it from touching the bottom, and put the other one on top, face up. Both were backed with tape for ease in handling plus protecting the back. I don't know why the directions to etch metal ALWAYS tell you to etch facedown but it seems to me that you could see it better face up. :D I didn't see any bad reactions from doing it this way and got more bang for my buck doing it this way. As you can see from the picture above, I got a little careless and made so much solution I had to use two containers. I picked them because the sheet fit into them nicely, they had lids, and they were free. :) I had four copper sheets on hand and cut one into slices so I was able to etch them all at once this way. 

This is my first try at this method and I am sure I made mistakes all along the way! Most directions I could find using this were for circuit boards and I don't have access to a lot of copper sheet but I certainly want to do this again! A few more notes: I discovered some saying that heating the solution makes it work faster. I didn't find that out until mine had been in solution for several hours, but you can see I put a heating pad underneath my setup, under the plastic. I also heard that adding citric acid to the solution could speed things up as well, so that was also added to the mixture during the last hour or so. I can't tell you if it helped or not...all I know is I didn't die! :D I put my metal into the solution with the intention of only keeping it in there for a couple of hours (the person on my FB group did hers for 90 mins but said she would do it for longer next time) but kept them in the solution for about SIX HOURS. As you will see, it didn't seem to hurt anything.  I left mine in the solution much longer than I needed to because (as I read around the time I read about the heat and the citric acid) I should have been running a sponge across the surface to encourage the etching to reach deeper into the metal.. it seems like it forms a skin or gunk or something and unless you do that it will only go so deep. I think if I had sponged them off during that time it may have gone faster. I'll try it next time.

Sorry about all the text - this is dangerous stuff and you should know as much as possible if you are going to attempt this! And please don't just rely on me and this article, I am a newbie at this! Go do some further research, as I did, before attempting! I just wish to inspire you to try new things! - but on to some pictures! 

Here you can see me testing one of the face up pieces.  Oops, wasn't wearing gloves but you can see them in the photo! :P This would have been a good time to run a sponge over the surface to see how much it has etched and possibly to give the etchant a fresh surface...As I said, hard to tell when using embossing powder how deeply it is etched...

If your mixture doesn't seem bubbly enough you can spike it up with additional peroxide or salt, which will give you a slight foamy reaction after you add them. As you can see in the photo above, the lighter color is the bare, etched metal, while the stamped trees are where the melted embossing powder protected the metal. If I had run a sponge across it, maybe the etching would have gone deeper. It etched far deeper on the bare 1/2" copper pipe I put in there than the sheet did, and I am not sure why. As I said, this is only my first (and second!) attempt so I have more to learn about it! If any of you reading this can contribute to this discussion, please do in the comments!

You can see how bubbly it got at first. I added some 1/2" copper pipes that I had on hand already - and ran over a stamp pad and embossed. It seemed to be a different kind of metal or maybe there was still something on the sheet metal because the pipe turned black in the etchant (around the embossing powder) while the sheet did not.

If you have been following my blog at all you will remember that I used thinner slices of 1" copper pipe as a bezel for some of my polymer clay pieces in the past. Guess what I will be doing to the pieces of pipe I have already cut, ready for my next mokume gane? :D  All I did to these besides the stamping was coat the edges and inside with Sharpie ink. The last step after etching is complete, before using patina, is to neutralize the metal after removing it from the etchant by putting it into some water containing a good amount of baking soda. I also used it as a paste to scrub off the embossing powder, and then rinsed and dried the metal well.

Here is one of the pipe pieces as I put the patina on it. This product is what I've been using to patina my copper with since I had it on hand already to use with my stained glass!

I had to remove the embossing powder to get the patina to reach the metal underneath. I tried to find out what you can remove embossing powder with but couldn't find any info. It came off the pipe much easier than the sheet, for some reason. As I've been saying all along, the pipe acted very different from the sheet in every step of this experiment! The embossing came off easily on the pipe but the methods I used on that didn't seem to work on the sheet...I used acetone first and then alcohol, and then scrubbed it off the pipe but the embossing didn't want to come off easily from the sheet metal! I was afraid to use the sandpaper at first but even that really didn't seem to do much. I then used baking soda as a scouring powder and it finally came off with some more elbow grease. Weird that I didn't need to do all that with the pipe.

Here are the pipe pieces I etched. I used alcohol on the one on the right and it seemed to take the embossing powder off easily whereas I used a scubbie on the one on the left, which left it duller than the alcohol did. This is before patina. The stamping shows up pretty well though, doesn't it?

After patina. the one on the right is not perfect but I still like the way they came out! They are laying on the stamp I used on them. I don't know what to do with them but great experiment! Can't wait to try it with my clay copper bezel slices!

I am going to cut this one up into pieces. Fresh out of the solution.

You may recognize my tree stamp from some of my mica stamped fused glass pendants. I love that stamp! The Christmas stamp matches one of my embossing folders that I used to make Christmas cards last year! These are fresh out of the etching solution., too

Here's a couple of the slices I cut the metal sheet into before etching. The floral one is the same stamp the pipe was etched with. I think I'll try to make bracelets with these.

Here is the same mermaid from the fail in the beginning of this post (the other side, of course, after sanding off that blue crap - well, most of it...you can see some around the edges in this photo!) You may recognize my mermaid as the inspiration for the glass painting I posted about back in June or so! 

I really thought you'd be able to feel the etching when it was done. It is not very deep and it is hard to feel it if run your fingernail across the metal, but the results show up nicely when you put the patina on! I am very happy with the end results...especially since I didn't have to invest any money to do it! :D Now I just need a cheap place to get copper sheeting...I believe this also works on brass, but not silver.

This is the scary part! (Well, one of them, lol!) As you can see I had gotten the embossing powder off that piece to the left better than the others as it turned completely black!

After patina. I love the way they came out! I still have to seal it...and figure out what to seal it with! I keep hearing people talking about something called "Kamar"...

The last step is to sand off the excess patina. I used 400 grit wet/dry sand paper that I had on hand to use on my polymer clay. I could probably take it through the smaller grits to polish it some more, if I want to.

Love my trees! The Christmas stamp did not come out perfectly but somehow I still like it, imperfections and all. :)

And my favorite, the mermaid! Very happy with the way she came out. What does not come out well in my pictures is that they have many colors in them, as a real patina would/should. There's even some blue in the one below. 

I hope you enjoyed reading about my foray into the world of metal etching...are you having trouble keeping up with all my many different skillsets yet? Lol! Stained glass (although there hasn't been much of that discussed on this blog!), fused glass, clay, scrapbooking, Christmas cards, stamping, wire work, beading, and now etching. Have I left anything out? LOL! Thanks for looking and come back soon! Please give my  FB page a like if you haven't already!