Re: Etching

sal (sal@napc.com)
Tue, 28 Oct 1997 13:30:09 -0500

Richard Sullivan wrote:
>
> Sal,
>
> Nitric will dissolve silver. It will generate very nasty gases so it should
> be done under a fume hood or outdoors with you standing up wind and the
> fumes blowing into the neighbors backyard. (Gads no, just kidding!)
>
> I don't recommend playing with this stuff as it is dangerous!!!!
>
> Maybe someone knows a way to blacken silver by converting it to silver
> sulfide. (sulphide to you Brits!)
>
> Better yet why not work on a thin copper or brass backing, create a image
> in resist that has been screened or aquatinted and then plate that with
> silver (or gold), then blacken the copper with a sculpture's patina
> formula. I have a book of patina formulas here that I could copy some for
> you if you need.

This sounds intriguing. I would love to see whatever recipes you've got.
Tiffany, my jeweler friend, has mentioned patina to me before. Perhaps
we could compare notes. She seems to work primarily in silver gold and
copper. However she does seem married to the idea of this particular
item being solid silver.

You'd be working small so the screening would have to be
> very small as well.

Would screening be necessary in this instance? Since this is not going
to be used for printing it seems that the screening would be
superfluous. It was my understanding that screening, or aquatinting for
that matter, were used to build little pockets that hold ink to be
smooshed(technical term) onto/into paper with the aid of an etching
press. I guess this is my turn to experiment and report back.

> This is an idea I've been wanting to tinker with for years.
>
> BTW you would be working with white on black so you might have to work from
> a positive depending on how the neg-pos thing works out.
>
> Dick

I think I have gained enough info to get started. I will let you know
how it turns out.

Thanks,
Sal