Acid etching stencil?

[oldanvilyoungsmith]

So, I'm working on a recurve fighter, and I want to etch a flame into the blade. I have tried both sharpie, and beeswax as a resist on my test pieces, but neither worked correctly.

So, those of you that do decorative acid etching, how do you make the pattern? If you use a stencil, where do you get it?


Thanks guys, Stephen.

 

[oldanvilyoungsmith]

Edited to add, I'm not etching for like a half hour or so, I'm soaking for a day. If that makes a difference in resist or stencil, please let me know.

 

[RyanW]

I have heard Fingernail polish works well. I am not sure if it would stay on for a day though? Good Luck let us see when you are done! Your last WIP was fun to watch

 

[Dan Pierson]

These may help:

http://www.nontoxicprint.com/acrylicresistetching.htm
http://www.ganoksin.com/ftp/edinburg-etch.pdf
http://www.cynthiablasingham.com/national/national/t_acr_hardground.htm

 

[pullrich]

I use multiple coats of spray paint or nail polish, scratch on the design, and conduct a soak of a few hours. Longer than that and the acid can etch under the paint or whatever.

I wrote up more detailed steps I have used, somewhere buried in the modifying cold steel trail hawk thread over in the Axe sub-forum. This should link to the page:
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/483042-Mod-ing-The-CS-Trail-Hawk?p=8446023#post8446023
Here's a link to Mike Forti's site and I found some good info there a while ago:

http://m4040.com/Knifemaking/M40Bowkri.htm

 

[oldanvilyoungsmith]

My two most recent tests, first was finger nail polish. I was less than pleased with it. Application was difficult to get a neat looking line, then after etch the very edges were quite fuzzy.

Then I tried the next one, I purchased from autozone a roll of fake chrome striping sticker. Best bang for the buck it looked like to me (in terms of quantity). Here are my results from that.

I think we have a winner! I'll run some more tests, this time on ht'd test samples, and see how they come out, but it seems good. It was easy to apply, fairly easy to cut and shape, and turned out with good lines after approx 6 hours in the etch.

Updates later.