etching ..anyone tried it ?

[fredster]

didnt know where to post this one so move if its wrong please

a mate of mine gave me a couple of etched glasses during the week and i was most impressed by them.So much so that we chatted and he gave me some etching liquid and i set about cutting a simple design and having a go myself.
must say its easier than i thought... apart from the fact that i didnt get a fantastic etch at the end of it all... it had thicker lines in places around the edges.
Has anyone tried etching and if so have you encountered this problem too ? and how did u get around it?

i love a new challenge ...

[DREAMGLASS]

Sadly chemical etching onto glass tends to give variable results and is more of a hobby process for 'one off' items. Commercially they use sandblasting, engraving and even screen printing to create decorative effects onto glass that give consistent output.

A lot depends on what you want to use the chemical etching process for. If you plan to use it for creating 'one off' items or adding effect to existing items it can work quite well, but if you try to create say four matching glasses, then that brings up the limitations of the process with too much variance in the results.


I was at the Trophex show a couple of years ago and one of the vendors there was showing off a crystal etch system that used two lasers to create a 3D image WITHIN a block of crystal. They gave me a free sample attached to a keyring with a small light within the keyring that illuminates the 3D image. Whilst I suspect the 'crystal' is actually a hard ultra clear plastic, the results are amazing. Trouble is, it is one of those products that people need to see 'in the flesh' to maximise sales, as 3D imagery just doesn't show up well on 2D web sites.

[Reg]

I use to have a small blasting business doing finishing for engineering company's when the engineering started to disappear I tried glass etching which came out very well however I closed the business though lack of work and have since done some etching on small objects using etching cream it's not bad but no where near as good as blasting.
Reg

[fredster]

cheers everyone..
i have had a look round and think i'm gonna try the sandblasting method as i can get a decent priced airbrushing method which i could also use the airbrush route for other things ... used to have one yrs ago but never got round to geting a compressor as at that time they were far too expensive.
hopefully ill get the hang of it and pass on my results in the coming months.