Etching Diasters

Since I am not a printmaker, and know nothing, I decided to try a lot of odd approaches to etching in hot pursuit of my 8 x 8 inch print for the Ambos Lados International Print Exchange.

COPPER RELIEF ETCHING

Eric at Argos mentioned that Jose Guadalupe Posada did relief copper etching to produce his famous calavera prints.  I thought that might be easy and direct, so I drew on a copper plate with a lithography pencil at Remarque Print Workshop on September 1st.

I used a #1 Stones litho lead, the softest.  Unlike Korn's litho leads, Stones is not water soluble.  However, after a 15 minute etch in Ferric Cholride, some of the Stones litho marks came off.

The dark lines are Stones litho pencil marks,

but the reflective lines were also litho pencil marks,

they just came off during the etch

The copper plate,

cleaned, de-oxidized, and de-greased

I rolled Akua intaglio black ink on the plate,

with a brayer

Over-inked?

The reflective light lines should be black,

for a relief print

Bad print,

probably not from too little pressure

Perhaps rubber based Van Son ink would work -- it is used for letter press printing.

ELECTRO-ETCHING

The next day, September 2nd, we made a trial electro-etch at QueLab Hackerspace in Albuquerque.  I previously made a whole blog post outlining the process.

Electro-etching set-up,

as pictured on my blog write up

The whole container of copper sulphate (860 grams)

into 3 liters of distilled water

(strong solution)

Positive connected to the copper plate,

negative connected to stainless steel tray --

Sharpie on copper as the resist --

before adding electrolyte

15 minutes of etching,

as supervised by Adric

.4 amps --

but needed 1.4 volts to get there

(instead of .05)

Plastic plate, insulating

between the copper and stainless steel tray

Washing electrolyte off the copper plate

Taking the Sharpie drawing off the copper plate

with alcohol

We did not print the etched test copper plate.  However, we could see that at least part of the copper etched around the Sharpie lines.  Part of the plate did not etch, but we suspect that was because the copper plate had grease on it.  I did not wash and de-grease the copper test plate.

The stainless steel tray was completely destroyed,

and lots of slag accumulated

(which is odd, because the copper plate was hardly altered)

The negative alligator clip

was coated with copper afterwards

Instead of a voltmeter,

we could use a cell phone charger (300 mA)  --

the green attachment hooks up to the round insert from the cell phone charger,

so that we can hook up wires with alligator clips at the other end

Later I tried to electro-etch using only a dilute vinegar solution as an electrolyte, and hardly made an etch in the copper plate after 2 hours.

Failed electro-etch,

using only vinegar as an electrolyte

3D PRINTED PRINTING PRESS

I commissioned Joshua from QueLab hackerspace in Albuquerque to 3D print a mini printing press, from the plans off Thingiverse:

3D printed mini printing press

Halfway...the biggest parts already printed

on the 3D printing press

The rest of the parts,

3D printed

The finished 3D print --

Thank you Josh!

I plan to show this off at the Southwest Print Fiesta in Silver City, on Oct 5 -7th, 2018.


Dennis Liberty made some etching tools for me, out of nails (Sept 5th, 2018). I asked for something that was irregular, like a rake with unevenly spaced teeth.  I thought it might give a more personal touch to the etching lines.  We'll see.

Homemade etching tools

made out of nails

Imitating the system at Argos printmaking workshop in Santa Fe, I glued some ceramic sandpaper to glass, so that I can bevel copper plates for etching.  I just have to pull the edge of the copper plate over the ceramic sandpaper.

80 and 210 grit

Deerfos ceramic sandpaper,

spray glued (Super 77) to glass,

and fits in a plastic box for portability