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. You'd be working small so the screening would have to be
very small as well.
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
At 04:24 PM 10/27/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Dear List,
> Does anyone know what acid would be most appropriate in etching silver?
>A jeweler friend of mine asked if it would be possin=ble to put a
>photograph onto one of her pieces. I immediately thought of maing aa
>resist with carbon tissue and etching in a similar way as photogravure
>plates. Would sulfuric acid work?
>
>wallowing in ignorance,
>Sal Mancini
>
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