A few days ago, I tried the thermal transfer onto brass again, this time with almost perfect success:
There were a couple of small bits that failed, but I fixed them by hand with a permanent marker, but mostly it was a perfect transfer. The thing that took the time was beating Inkscape->Printer into submission; eventually, I found the best solution was Inkscape->PDF, then print the PDF using okular under KDE 4.2.
This afternoon, I finally tried the etching; here’s a picture of the setup:
left: water pump
middle: bucket with inner etching basin.
right: etchant storage heating up with with pond heater.
Once the etchant was warm/ I got bored, I poured it into the etching basin, moved it into the back room beside an open window and left it alone for a wee while. Checking up on it, several things were obvious:
- The air curtain that the pond pump is blowing bubble through needs secured better as it floated to the top; I used a piece of plastic to quickly bodge it, but a better solution is needed.
- I held the brass sheet I was etching vertically using a pair of wooden clothes pegs. These made it float to the top (duh!), so another solution is needed here too (temp. bodge with plastic time again).
- The pond heater works really well for this purpose; its waterproof and has a metal heating element contained in a glass tube.
After an hour or so, it was done! Here is a picture of the freshly rinsed result:
And finally, once its been cleaned up with some wire wool:
So all in all, a pretty good result for the first time! I’ve got some redesign to do to sort the remaining issues though.
adq 