I've etched several saber parts. I do the "immerse the entire part" method. You just have to properly tape up the part so that parts you don't watched etched don't become etched and it works fine for me. However the cotton swab method is fine too. Especially when you don't want to take the saber apart or have "hills" and "valleys" that may be hard to tape up properly. The cotton swab method will definitely be what I use when I eventually try to etch a stainless steel blade on a "wall hanger" sword.
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