Galvanic Etching of Brass -- Part1 -- /dev/random

Galvanic Etching of Brass -- Part1

Been reading alot about etching brass using electrolysis. I went out to get some copper sulfate today to try this and rigged up a very simplistic test setup to see what happened. I didn't have a brass plate, so I tried etching a hinge. The setup was just some steel fencing, a glass top to a slow cooker, and some insulated copper wire. I hot glued the wire to the back of the hinge, mixed up a solution of copper sulfate and water in the glass then placed my screen on top of it. Hooked up a 5V 1A DC power supply, with the cathode being the fencing and the anode being the wire/brass. Below is a picture(Click for bigger size) of it running(The black crap is brass that has been freed, it was a nice brown with some glimmers of shiny brass when dried):

The big issue is pretty much just the hinge itself got etched, since it was closer to the cathode. But at least it worked, the bites are really obvious in the hinge, and it was starting to chew through the edges too. Below is a picture of the etched and normal hinge(Click for larger size):

I plan to order some brass plates and whip up a much better setup to do some real etching soon. Just wanted to get a feel if this would work and not burn anything down before investing any money into it.

Comments(0) 2008-03-26 01:40:00

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