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Etching and lithographing

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vtsteam:
Well, closest I've come to metal work lately has been experimenting with etching and lithographing using common non-toxic and kitchen materials.

I started off trying aluminum foil per some internet suggestions and etching with coca cola, and using a lot of different other stuff for a resist. Mainly castille soap -- also an online suggestion. But that didn't work well or consistently for me. So I started looking for a grease that was meltable just a little above room temperature, and after a little research settled on coconut oil, which seemed to work well using a brush. as a resist. Warm water removed it

I tried coca cola and white vinegar as mordants, but again consistency was difficult. I did manage a few prints of birds for my neices for christmas -- one owns a cockatiel and the other is a biologist who does field research. They were okay as a start, but I didn't like some things about using foil for a printing plate -- mainly that it had to be placed on a larger acrylic sheet for inking, and the ink would get on the acrylic, which meant you had to cut the border of the image down. It also didn't leave the nice embossed edge a real etching plate does when run through a press.

So I decided to experiment with aluminum plate -- which alloy would work best, I didn't know. I think Reynolds aluminum foil, which seemed to work well is 8111 alloy -- virtually impossible to get. So I decided to just try some "generic" aluminum plate available from a local sheet metal bender -- he didn't even know the variety he had.

This didn't seem to work well using the old method I'd tried which was to lay down the resist, and then etch. But eventually I hit on the discovery that etching wasn't really required, and the main effect was a litho process, not an etching process. Litho depends on the difference in adhesion of oil based ink on a hygroscopic surface vs a water repellant surface. I found by experiment that cleaning and abrading the plate with scotch brite, then immersing in coca cola coated it with a hygroscopic surface evenly. Then drawing on that with 6B soft pencil created a water repellent line surface which increased in its oil holding capability with subsequent inkings. A lot of other kinds of markers didn't work as well for me.

This was pretty cool and I experimented with prints of an image of  fossils, and an alligator swimming -- the last drawn from film I'd taken when I lived on my houseboat in Florida 20 years ago. I was able to get a good impression of the plate into the paper even without an etching press -- just using a spoon to rub the image in.

So there you go, my only metal working to date, this year at least. Aluminum foil, unknown alloys and coke.  :)

awemawson:
Steve welcome back  :thumbup: You truly are the phoenix  :lol:

Your experiments look rather good, what got you started down that path ?

Joe d:
Steve it`s good to see you back.

I`ll second Andrew, they look good :thumbup:

Joe

RobWilson:
Nicely done Steve  :clap: :clap: :clap: good looking results  :thumbup:

You have still done more metalworking than I of late  :palm:


Rob

awemawson:
Come on Rob, don't under sell yourself. You've been casting tin / lead alloys on a microscopic scale  :lol:

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