Can you Etch Aluminum?

[Chris Crawford]

I'm wanting to etch my name onto a small aluminum so I can embed it into a folder's handle. Any ideas?

Thanks -chris

 

[Bruce Bump]

Chris, Yes you can. Try a piece first to get the rate speed so you dont go too deep. I ruined my entire etchant by leaving aluminum in overnight. It all turned a milk color and the aluminum was a rounded blob.

 

[Chris Crawford]

Thanks Burce!

 

[Jeff Clark]

Aluminum is easy to etch. Either get muriatic (hydrochloric) acid at a pool supply store or get sodium hydroxide (lye). These are used for chemical milling of aluminum. I have removed up to a 1/16 of an inch of material that way. You need to test your masking material since these will remove a lot of maskants.

 

[Chris Crawford]

I saw this trick for etching brass and thought I would try it with aluminum. It looks like it works pretty well....

You can etch brass with feric-chloride(sp?) from Radio Shack, and you can use a black marker for your resist. You just cover the area to etch with the marker, scribe in you name or whatever, then apply your feric-chloride.

It seems to work best on aluminum after about 2.5 minutes. Then I wipe the excess feric-chloride up with some tissue, dip the aluminum in a little baking-soda water to stop the etch, and clean the marker ink off with a little alcohol.

Well, I hope this helps someone else. Thanks -chris

 

[Bruce Bump]

Chris, Thanks for the tip, I will try that sometime. Bruce B