help with silver etching

[bills makes]

I have been trying to etch a design on silver to make cuff links I am using the laser toner tranfer method my problem is I get pitting on some of the masked areas I am not sure if it is the toner not sticking to the silver properly as there is no areas not masked apart from where I want it etched ? I have tried 3 times now and it has happened each time to a different degree.

[Dennis]

Hi Bill,
If you are getting pitting the resist is not sticking well enough
Your question will be difficult to answer more specifically until you give us more information:

What are you printing onto?
how are you preparing your silver sheet?
How are you transferring the toner onto the metal?
What etching solution are you using and at what strength? Dennis.

[bills makes]

Hi Dennis i am printing the toner on to yellow press n peel paper then ironing this on to 1mm thick silver sheet which is cleaned with wire wool to give a key for the toner the etching solution i am using if ferric nitrate at 100g to 100ml water as per the instructions and solution is warm ? this is a set of cuff links i made as you can see i have had to sand a fair bit to even get to this stage . looking on the net i now think the paper my be my problem as i think it is a Chinese knock off of the blue press n peel paper.

[Dennis]

No, I can see your problem. Don't use knockoffs.

Preparation of metal is best done with a Scotchbrite washing up pad and a little washing up liquid. Steel wool might be greasy, or leave minute fragments behind.

Below are PNP instruction, which I hope you can read.
Ironing it on is a new skill to learn.
The method for etching is to float the metal in the etchant upside down, once thoroughly wetted, by attaching small pieces of polystyrene foam to the reverse with double sided tape for buoyancy.

I guess I need not emphasise the need for adhesive tape on the reverse and borders and prompt removal once the etch is sufficient and the resist is still firm. Dennis

[Dennis]

Here are the instructions cropped to increase their size.

[bills makes]

Thank you very much for your help Dennis i will follow your instructions and use the proper P N P blue paper and i did not know about floating the silver i was told to leave the tape on the back long and suspend it by that all very good advice thank you for your time in helping me .

[Dennis]

You're welcome--answering questions is what we enjoy doing here. it would be nice to hear of the outcome, though. Dennis.

[bills makes]

I will keep you updated with the outcome I was talking to a friend who has a heat press so going to try the p n p on that to see if I can get the silver to a more consistent temperature and hopefully better transfer then float it in the etching solution as you advised me and see if I get a better result also going to clean the silver in acidtone just before printing the image.

[Ralph G]

While the toner transfer method CAN be made to work properly its often a hassle to get perfect and dense transfers every time. Unfortunately this can be related to multiple things like choice of papers, Which toner brand and correct pressure/heat while transfer. So its really hard to give specific advice.
I used toner transfer extensively for some time and also tried the PNP (original & knockoff) among various other papers & foils .
I can only say that in the end I had the best results using Oracal 651 plotter vinyl as a substrate and multiple passes through a laminator. This, followed by immersing the piece in icewater for a few minutes, let me peel off the vinyl with leaving the most perfect transfers from all the stuff I tried. If you use transparent or white oracal its immediately obvious if all the toner has transferred. If temp and pressure are just right ALL of the toner transfers to the metal leaving absolutely nothing behind. My printer is an old Hp laserjet 6p with original HP toner. Refill toner did not work for me. Maybe the Icewater trick will work with PNP also - never tested this though since I already worked with the oracal at the time. Also cleanliness is goodliness - If after whatever cleaning step you still see water beading up on the surface its not clean enough. Water should completly sheet over the metal without beading up or any water breaks.

To enhance adhesion and possibly close up any existing micro pinholes I carefully heat the transferred piece facedown (held with some pliers) over the kitchen hotplate (5-8cm distance) until you can see just the very faintest whisps of smoke coming from the piece. This will remelt the toner, enhance adhesion and close small pinholes. Large pinholes & defects will not be closed. Also take care not to overheat the piece because this will burn the toner making the results worse than before :) The objective is just to get it hot enough that the toner remelts at the surface. Its a matter of experience doing this but this additional step has helped with difficult pieces.

Well, whatever i tried I still had a failure rate of about 10%-15% of the pieces . I have now switched to using dry film photoresist for etching purpose and this has dropped my failure rate to near nil (if done correctly) . For etched base metal pieces (copper brass , german silver etc) I still use the toner transfer sometimes because its just faster - but with the prices of silver sheet I want to make sure it comes out perfectly so I go through the added hassle of using the photoresist. The benefit of the photoresist is you can use the exposure masks repeatedly if you make multiples. Pinholes have vanished completely , the rare faliures are related to adhesion problems of the film (improper cleaning of substrate & dirt trapped under the photresist film. If I take care to adhere to strict procedure and do things clean the pieces come out perfectly.

BTW : I am etching my silver electrolytically with 3% nitric solution. Ferric nitrate is hard to get here, wears out much too quickly and is expensive as well...

Good Luck with your pieces!

Cheers
Ralph

[bills makes]

Thank you for your sound advice I have today been looking at a laser etching machine just waiting to hear back from the company as it only shows it used on wood leather etc so not sure it will work on metal yet .

[Ralph G]

For deep etching on metal you ll definitely need an powerful YAG laser - these dont come cheap unfortunately.
The cheap (mostly chinese made 1000mW-3000mW )CO2 laser engraving machines dont work on metal at all. you will need at least a 40W co2 Laser and a special marking spray. this will burn the spray into the surface of the metal leaving a more or less grey/black surface marking of varying durability depending on the spray mostly. From what I read people had success with this method but its just a surface marking anyway and does not go deep. For that you need a more powerful fiber laser(YAG)
But You could use it to cut vinyl templates/masks... but be aware that the optics on some of them are not able to focus to a very fine dot so minimal line width and as such the level of detail is limited this is definitely a question I would ask the vendor. Jewelry stuff is usually small so detail matters.
The interface between the laser and your graphics program is also of importance , for convenience of use it should be able to accept output formats from corel, autocad or whatever else programm you use to create your pattern. Some of the cheap units only come with limited capability in that regard.

I have looked into that as an alternative but a machine that could do what I want with will be roughly in the 10.000€ range and above.... If you are content with only surface marking a much cheaper CO2 will do. So far I am sticking to etching which gives me good results and is budget friendly as well.

Prices on lasers, 3d printers, cnc milling machines and such for the casual consumer market are steadily going down and quality goes up because of demand so I guess in a few years we will see som really good stuff coming from all those kickstarter projects.. Until then I am content to stay "old school".

[bills makes]

Thank you very much for your help with this I have had another look today and the cost will be way out of my price range I think my problem is the cheap Chinese nock off p n p paper I did another try today and used my friends heat press instead of a iron the image transfered fine but it has minute pin holes in the mask which is causing the pitting I am getting so have ordered some p n p blue to try the press makes the job easier as it has a timer I just set it to 150 deg C and time to 480 seconds worked a treat to transfer the image .

[ps_bond]

For deep etching on metal you ll definitely need an powerful YAG laser - these dont come cheap unfortunately.

They don't, but your opening statement is... Erroneous.

The 2 biggest issues with traditional etching are keeping the etch area clear (of bubbles and etch products) and undercutting. The former can be mitigated with a bubble etch (or even just a feather) while there is plenty of work out there that demonstrates that electroetching does not undercut to the same degree with an appropriately shaped electrode. Google electrochemical machining and pick out the useful bits.

I'm more inclined than most to throw tech at a problem and I haven't gone down the laser etch route (although it'd probably be fibre rather than YAG; already got a YAG welder).

[enigma]

Sure because nobody ever managed any decent etchings before lasers were invented..... #-o

[Ralph G]

Well, there might be a slight misunderstanding here, my statement on YAG lasers was in direct response to bills inquiry into laser etching in his the last post and was intentionally ment that for deep LASER etching youll need an YAG - a cheap CO2 will not do. This might have fallen out of context because my response went on the next page in the thread. I have done my fair share of etching , both chemical and electrochemical and know my way around an etch tank - as for low tec its still the best method around. With the right chemistry you can etch almost anything.

These were all etched with traditional methods, some Toner transfer, some photofilm. Its amazing what kind of detail you can achieve even with simple methods. the motives might not hit everybodys fancy tough...
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Ive even experimented with some completely fluoric and fluoride-salts free titanium etching - even that can be done - but I have not refined it to the crisp and smooth etch of the other Metals, etch is partly uneven and background is still too rough for my liking. The method needs refinement still. But I am not aware that anyone else has achieved similar etching of titanium without at least some fluorides present. The method is still nasty - nothing for the kitchen table - but I dont like to deal with fluoric acid...

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[enigma]

Nice work Ralph and thanks for the explanation :)

[ps_bond]

Well, there might be a slight misunderstanding here, my statement on YAG lasers was in direct response to bills inquiry into laser etching in his the last post and was intentionally ment that for deep LASER etching youll need an YAG - a cheap CO2 will not do. This might have fallen out of context because my response went on the next page in the thread. I have done my fair share of etching , both chemical and electrochemical and know my way around an etch tank - as for low tec its still the best method around. With the right chemistry you can etch almost anything.

Context is everything :)

I've also done a fair amount, although the majority has been etching thin copper from a GRP substrate...

The cheap CO2 lasers are pretty worthless for anything other than trivial/low depth marking and even then they're not great; they are completely unsuited to cutting vinyl though - not even decent fume extraction will help. There are a number of laser cutting outfits that specifically exclude vinyl, but card works; however, the cheaper plotter/cutters also work for that and will do vinyl without the risks.


Ive even experimented with some completely fluoric and fluoride-salts free titanium etching - even that can be done - but I have not refined it to the crisp and smooth etch of the other Metals, etch is partly uneven and background is still too rough for my liking. The method needs refinement still. But I am not aware that anyone else has achieved similar etching of titanium without at least some fluorides present. The method is still nasty - nothing for the kitchen table - but I dont like to deal with fluoric acid...


Couldn't agree more - HF is not one I'm keen to have around, I don't feel I've got the right setup for handling it. Same goes for cyanides (plating rather than etching). Every solution - in both senses - I've seen for titanium has involved fluorine ions, which isn't much of an improvement on not using HF.

[Ralph G]

Couldn't agree more - HF is not one I'm keen to have around, I don't feel I've got the right setup for handling it. Same goes for cyanides (plating rather than etching). Every solution - in both senses - I've seen for titanium has involved fluorine ions, which isn't much of an improvement on not using HF.

Since the chemical side of the fluorine free titanium etch has been maxed out further improvements could only be made by altering the physical characteristics of the etch which would need some rather expensive equipment - so progress is stalling unfortunately. Ionic liquids instead of aqueous media could be another approach though. The Leicester University is at the forefront of this research but understandably they dont disclose specific processes...

A good, stable, Cyanide free silver plating bath that does mirror bright deposits would be nice - the industry is working on those, mainly because of the cost of waste disposal and waste water treatment - they are not so much concerned about its toxicity. There are numerous new patents involving Hydantoin based solutions which seem to show great promise -even better than succinimide is claimed. Unfortunately over here neither of these new (well, succinimide has been around for a while) baths are sold - for non-cyanide all you can get are the same old thiosulfate or pyrophosphate based baths which are neither stable nor produce mirror bright deposits in bath plating.
Well,
I think this is getting a bit off-topic so I will leave it at that.

[LydiaNiz]

Bill, I keep a few of these pens (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/121133836438?lpid=122&chn=ps&adgroupid=27378760866&rlsatarget=pla-181484338146&adtype=pla&poi=&googleloc=1007416&device=c&campaignid=620865095&crdt=0) handy for my infrequent etching. They are good to go over any iffy areas of resist. I use parcel tape for blocks of metal I want to keep extra clean. Good luck!

[bills makes]

Thank you for that I now have a etch resist pen I did try a marker pen but it gets etched away just waiting for the p n p blue to arrive and then give it another go.

[bills makes]

Well the p n p blue come today so tried it and got a way better result also by using the press to heat the silver works way better photos of the etching and the type of press i now use. Thank you everyone that has spent time helping me sort this problem .

[Dennis]

That press looks quite small and dinky. Can you post the name so that we can look it up? Dennis.

[ps_bond]

Going by the image name, it's one of these (http://www.ukcutter.co.uk/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=171).

[Dennis]

Thank you Peter, subject to a proper trial, it might be an improvement on a domestic iron. It is not completely clear whether there is a thermostatic control. Dennis.

[Ralph G]

Glad you finally had the success you were aiming for.

The etch seems nice and crisp without pinholes or toner adhesion problems. But the Image looks a bit pixelated to me -this might be exactly the look you were aiming for - so sorry,I dont want to sound like a wiseass here...
What I do is converting all my templates to vector graphics. Since the final etch result can at max only be as good as the template I found it really makes a difference.
Jpeg, bmp and other formats are build up from individual pixels whereas vector graphics are not. There is a number of graphic programs that can easily convert pixel images to vector with just a few clicks, the most well known are adobe illustrator and corel draw. But there are even some freeware programs (inkscape for example)out there that can do this as well. The freeware doesnt provide all the ease and functionality of the major players but are usable to some extent.
In addition to nice crisp lines, vector graphics are infinitely scalabe without loss of detail so the size of your original template vs workpiece doesnt matter so much. but be aware that you cannot easily convert a bad quality half-stamp sized jpeg/bmp of 50dpi into a high-res vector graphic...(at least not easily). Moderately sized pics of 5x5cm and/or 300dpi at least will mostly convert fine though. if you start with larger, higher resolution pictures it will be no problem at all.
in the added pic you can see the difference between the original jpeg on the left and the converted vector image on the right. lines are obviously much crisper in the vector image. This will be somewhat mitigated by the resolution of your laser printer upon printing on the pnp but using vector graphics instead of jpeg/bmp etc. as a printing source will enhance the overall quality of the etch.
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[bills makes]

Thank you for your advice can vector be done in Photoshop as I have cs6 ? But not illustrator.

[bills makes]

Thank you Peter, subject to a proper trial, it might be an improvement on a domestic iron. It is not completely clear whether there is a thermostatic control. Dennis.
Yes thermostatic controlled and timer i set it to 150 deg C and 600 seconds it will bleep when done and Peter is spot on with the model

[ps_bond]

Inkscape (https://inkscape.org/en/) is my go-to for vector artwork. And it's free...

As for the model - if I hadn't had the helpful image title I'd have done an image search next :)

[bills makes]

Inkscape (https://inkscape.org/en/) is my go-to for vector artwork. And it's free...

As for the model - if I hadn't had the helpful image title I'd have done an image search next :)
Thank you Peter i am not good with computers at the moment i use word to make the page with all the designs on to print to the p n p blue but it will not work with the Vector artwork so how can i create a page of designs to print ?

[Dennis]

Making a page to print can be done on PowerPoint. I watched it being done quite easily, but as I had no intention of doing it I did not take in the details. Dennis.

[ps_bond]

Inkscape can do full pages with ease.

[bills makes]

Inkscape can do full pages with ease. i am lost with it how do you import multi images in to a single page please ?

[ps_bond]

When you create a new document with Inkscape, it creates it as a page (check File->Document Properties). Zooming in & out will show the outline of the full page.
File->Import to import an existing image file, put the cursor over the object until it changes to show a hand as the cursor, then drag it to where you want it on the page. Scaling can be done using the arrows; if you hold down ctrl & change the size it'll stay in proportion.
Repeat until the page is filled...

I don't think PnP is available in A4 from memory so you'll need to set the page to US Letter IIRC?

[bills makes]

Making a page to print can be done on PowerPoint. I watched it being done quite easily, but as I had no intention of doing it I did not take in the details. Dennis.
thank you Dennis

[Dennis]

Of course if you get bogged down, you can simply print your images, cut them out and re-paste onto A4 paper as a collage. Then copy onto your PnP with a Lazer printer on 'Best'. Dennis.

[bills makes]

When you create a new document with Inkscape, it creates it as a page (check File->Document Properties). Zooming in & out will show the outline of the full page.
File->Import to import an existing image file, put the cursor over the object until it changes to show a hand as the cursor, then drag it to where you want it on the page. Scaling can be done using the arrows; if you hold down ctrl & change the size it'll stay in proportion.
Repeat until the page is filled...

I don't think PnP is available in A4 from memory so you'll need to set the page to US Letter IIRC?
Thank you Peter I think I may have illustrator with the cs2 I bought a while ago on the boot sale will have to find it

[1711]

There's a company that makes a small scale hot press mainly for metal foiling but it's a clamp style mini press rather than the big style in the photo.. I think they are called dragon impress?

Another solution to the pnp dilemma is sign writing vinyl put through a cutter such as the ones made by craftrobo sold in the UK by graphtec. They would certainly cope with the degree of detail in the original post pics (I do mine this way) and as the vinyl is adhesive backed there's no issue of part adhesion.

On the negative side weeding out your waste from the cut can be tedious 😆

Oh and Dennis I 💚💛💜💙 you! I have been sealing. My blanks in parcel tape and suspending them upside down on monofilament over sticks... What a palaver.. 😆 I can't wait to try polystyrene islands!!

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