Experimented with RootKiller etching last night.

[Cern]

Prepping for something on my saber-in-progress. I was *shocked* at how fast this stuff ate into the aluminum. It was in there a maximum of 5 minutes. Bubbled like crazy. I had been reading around the net, looking for tutorials, and someone said that running electricity through the bath was a must, but he must have been using a weaker solution.

I used three tablespoons of the root killer and three of kosher salt, dissolved in near boiling water. Just some old enamel model paint i had lying around for the resist.


http://i.imgur.com/fnIUjIQ.jpg

[Silver Serpent]

Electricity is necessary for a salt water etching system. Acid etching doesn't require any power, but it goes MUCH faster. Sometimes too fast if you're not careful. Prep work on the metal and the resist makes all the difference in the world.

Try a thicker coating of the enamel paint, or possibly a different resist material. I followed this tutorial: http://www.fx-sabers.com/forum/index.php?topic=39721.0 and got nice results. This tutorial uses a different acid to etch the metal, but the process is similar. Diluting the ferric chloride PCB etchant allowed me to slow the reaction down to manageable speeds.

Keep experimenting on scrap until you get the results you're looking for.

[Cern]

i think these came out pretty sweet: http://imgur.com/a/hNd7R

One of these will go on the stand i made for my Girlfriends saber.

[ARKM]

I experimented with root killer etching for aluminum. Mine was a mixture of saltwater and copper sulfate crystals (copper sulfate being the main ingredient in most root killers) It does not require electricity when etching zinc, aluminum and steel. It will eat through aluminum FAST (again, no electricity). Saltwater etching though does require electricity for aluminum and while slower, makes for much cleaner etches. My tests with copper sulfate added to the mix, using both aluminum and brass (used electricity on the brass), always created more pitting and uneven edges.