So i love the look of etching and i learned in a course to tranfer your design onto metal using  a photocopier and an iron but it is giving me some trouble!! can anyone help?

I've been trying to transfer my design onto my silver after i photocopy a design onto this press and peel paper that people use to make circuit boards, then i iron on to the metal, but it never wants to stick to the metal, it only comes off a little bit.  I clean the metal using a brillo pad or an sos pad, i use pummus, and ammonia- but still seems like it wont tranfer.  Can anyone give me some suggestions or give me an alternative to tranferring patterns onto metal for etching? 

 thank you

 I had the same problem with press n peal paper on copper.  I scrubbed it really well.  The design only partially transferred.

There must be someone out there who knows how to make this work.

GLO 

Hmm, I've never had much trouble with Press N Peel, myself.

What kind of copier are you using?  PnP works best with a laser copier or printer. (It needs the heat of the laser, not just ink sprayed on it.) And adjust your light/darkness setting so that you're using heavy, heavy black in the inkiest parts.

Also make sure you're printing the copy onto the dull side of the paper,  and then putting that dull side against your freshly scrubbed metal for heat-transfer.

Use plenty of pressure with the iron. You can see the black of the image darkening a bit through the blue plastic when it's transferred well.

Wait for it to cool, and then slowly peel it up.  Fill in any areas that peeled off with permanent marker, and then etch. 

Hi there

I use a burnisher every 20 seconds or so between pressing with the iron, just give it a good rub down with the burnisher while it is still hot, I usually have to repeat this a few times.  Hope this helps :} 

  I've had the same troubles with that PnP paper.  You rub and peak and it doesn't transfer, rub and peak, rub and peak and still half it of stays on the paper.  Hopefully all of my frustrations will help here.  I clean the metal with a non abrasive cleaner first, pumice or comet and soft tooth brush until all the grease and finger prints are off your metal ( yes even if you just bought it ).  Then you heat up your metal on the iron and lay down your transfer image. This requires holding your iron in some type of vise, and not having an iron that will turn off when upside down.  Place your metal on the iron intself and then place the image on to the metal.  The image will heat up and become kind of black and glossy, then you start burnishing like crazy with a burnisher or a wooden spoon or a handle from a mallet or something while the metal is on the iron.  You burnish till the image becomes a grayish color and you think that it has to be stuck to the metal.  Then instead of lifting the paper to check, just pull the metal off the iron to cool.... wait a few minutes and then take a peak..... it should be almost a perfect transfer.   Be careful not to get your metal to hot, this will burn the inks.  If there are a few spots that don't transfer here or there use a permanent marker or nail polish to fill them in.   If you can't get your iron upside down try what you where doing, just letting the metal cool before you lift the paper off once its thoughly burnished.  Frank Mueller

So!  Did you ever get this to work for you?

 I just tried etching last week, myself, and, BOY, have I had problems!  After trying lots of stuff, this is what I ended up learning:

I use a big pad of paper for the back, put my clean silver on that, and the PnP Blue transfer on top of that.  With the iron set just before Perm Press (old iron), I put the iron down directly on the back of the PnP, and leave it for about 30 seconds.  I then have to pick it up and put it back down because this darn iron shuts off. 

When it put it back down, I start burnishing it with the edge of the iron, and press it down really hard, until it looks like the whole pattern is transferred. 

I then quench, and only remove the PnP after the silver is cool - sometimes it just comes off in the water.

Another thing I learned, permanent marker DOES NOT WORK with silver etching mordant - it might work with ferric chloride - I haven't tried that, but not the silver mordant.  Fingernail polish may work, but I ended up buying asphaltum - got that at *** Blick, and clean up with naptha which I got at my local hardware store.

I had to put that project away last week, and have not had a chance to get back to it, but intend to next week.  I'd love to hear if your were successful.

Connie, I'm curious what chemical you're using for your silver.

I've never had tremendous success with Sharpie markers as a resist. But I've used RED inked Lumocolor pens plenty of times (for copper and silver), and they hold up pretty well. But it would depend on your chemical, that's why I ask.

If you try them out just make sure you get the Permanent kind, not the Non-permanent variety intended for transparencies. http://www.rexart.com/mar_lumocolor_perm.html

 I have had to put my etching projects away for awhile.  I am getting ready for a big international agate show in Wisconsin, being held sort of by Green Bay.

http://www.uwfox.uwc.edu/wesm/agate/

Here is the link.  There will be people there from all over the world.  We will have a display there, but not a sales booth.  However...........  I may just happen to have a few wire wrapped agates there if anyone is interested.

About the etching:  My dad got me 5 lbs of ferric chloride at a commercial electronics supply place.  So I will have plenty when I can get back to it.

In the meantime I have been thinking.......  there is a ton of info out there about how to do it for printed circuit boards.  I talked to my instructor at Veberods Gems in Minnetonka, and she thinks that my problem may not be enough heat. I am not a petite person.  I tend to think big and make big pieces.  (That is part of what gave me problems soldering.  My pieces were too big to get sufficently hot from even 2 butane torches.)  The metal itself works as a heat sink.  It takes a lot of heat input to sufficiently warm a big piece.

I was trying to make copper bracelets from copper buss bar stock.  The designs were dynamite when I put them on by hand with a paint pen, and or a sharpie.  bTW - You can use the paint pen and then go back and scratch out more detail by removing some paint.

I could not get the PNP paper to work.  I seem to remember that the fusing temprature for toner is around 350 degrees.  My next experiment is going to be something like this:

A cookie sheet, a pad of newspaper, and the copper into an oven at 350 degrees.  This is below the combustion point for paper, as long as it does not touch the elements or a flame. After the whole thing is heated up, use the PNP paper and an iron.

 Electronics geeks also put the toner onto plain acetate and then transfer it to the board with heat.  Others use certain kinds of Photo paper.  You have to use a copier or printer that uses toner.  The object is to somehow get the toner onto the copper.  The toner itself becomes your resist.

I mask other ares that I don't want etched with either tape, or just plain acrylic paint.  I have no idea how these things stand up to other etchs, but they work great with ferric chloride.

 
Good luck, have some fun, and maybe someone more talented than me can post some pictures.

Linda
 

Addie, Linda, and all.......

The etching mordant I am using is sold by Rio Grande.  The MSDS sheet says it is nitric acid.  I tried using staedler red permanent marker, and sharpie, which both are supposed to work with ferric chloride, but I can tell you from experience, they do not work with nitric acid.  I ended up going to *** Blick Art Supplies and buying ashaltum, which works perfectly as a resist - paints on.  I'm also using PnP Blue, which has caused me some problems, but like I said earlier, I am learning to get around those.  I'm attempting to etch text onto silver, so if I get a good transfer of the text and area directly around it, I can fill in any other areas with the asphaltum.  I'm also now using that on the edges, and having good luck with it.

 I have also purchased ferric chloride from *** Blick, but have not yet had a chance to use it.

I was excited to see in these posts the cities Wauwatosa and Minnetonka.  I have a brother in Sheboygan - in fact I'll be there this weekend for his wedding (he used to live in Wauwatosa), and I live near the Twin Cities.  I will be acutally driving through Green Bay this weekend, so was hoping that agate show was this weekend, but, too bad, it's not! 

Would love to meet up with others having the same interests - I sometimes feel very much alone out here in the sticks.

Hi Connie,

Nope, you're completely on track. Nitric acid will eat permanent marker for breakfast!

But there is an alternative. If you're using markers and PnP with silver, try ferric nitrate. It takes a bit longer to etch your silver, but it works like ferric chloride does on copper, meaning that it doesn't undercut the resist designs.

Here's a link to buy crystals. (I mix mine with water. Carefully.) 

 
I hope you have fun at the wedding! Actually, I'm planning on heading up to check out that Agate show. It's too bad your timing couldn't have worked out better for you.
 

Addie,

Thanks for the link for ferric nitrate.  I had heard of it, but couldn't find where to buy it.  I'm actually happy with the results I'm getting with the nitric acid, now that I have found the right resist.  It works in 30 minutes, and it is not as scary as everyone says.  Good common sense and just reasonable safety measures have made it work just fine for me.

By the way, I have tried twice to say that I bought both my ferric chloride and the asphaltum at DickBlick Art Supplies, but the first part of the name keeps getting bleeped - some automated engine thinks I'm posting naughty stuff, I guess!  I tried not putting a space in this time - let's see if it works.

Thanks again for the tips.  I'll post again when I get back and try my etching projects again!

 Connie

I come to jewelry from a printmaking background.  The technique of using a dry toner copier to transfer an image to metal works in a similar way to PNP.  I prefer using transparency paper because the toner comes off cleaner than it does with regular paper copies.  Just cover the metal with the photocopied image facing it (remember it will transfer in reverse), a tea towel, and a hot iron.  The toner starts to melt in a  couple minutes.  Wait for the metal too cool and pop the transparency off.  If using paper, you will need to soak it and work the paper off by scrubbing. 

I also have a studio griddle that I sometimes use for laminating resists.  Turn the griddle up to 350 and lay your metal on it.  Lay your PNP on top of that, let it warm up and burnish away....sure beats trying to balance an iron upside down.  A quick trip through the etching press while the metal is still warm seems to help with the lamination.

For those who want to paint on a resist, you might like Z*Acryl (danielsmith.com or graphicchemical.com).  It's a lot more fluid than asphaltum and holds up to a longer etch than markers.

I wonder if there is a safer mordant for silver than those mentioned.  Nitric acid produces unhealthy fumes and ferric nitrate is flammable.  Any ideas on alternatives and suppliers?

Mame

I finally got an etching project finished successfully!  Yeah!  Here's a link to a picture of it:  http://picasaweb.google.com/cvcarufel/JewelryShots/photo#5228825230675725634

I had lots of trouble getting the transfer accomplishedl.  I scrubbed that puppy so many times I thought I'd have prune hads forever!  I was just about to split it into three different phases when I finally got one good transfer of all of the detail.  There was quite a bit of fine detail - the total tag measures 1" x 1 3/4", so the lettering and graphics were to fine for me to just paint in with asphaltum.  When finished, I blackened the detail with liver of sulfur.

 I used PnP Blue for the resist.  The smallest sheet I can successfully print in my laser printer is half of a letter size, so I fill up the whole thing with copies of the same image because I know one won't be enough.  Sad, huh?

 I'm just not that sold on PnP Blue - even when the toner transferred, the blue was still left on the sheet.  I'm going to go back and try just the transparency again, now that I have a little more experience.

Anyway, I'm so happy I finally got it to work.  Now I have a new addiction!