Have you ever wanted to put intricate details and designs onto jewellery? Or wondered how it’s done? I have! In particular, I’ve wanted to be able to put Chinese characters on my designs. One way of putting beautiful designs directly onto silver is by etching the silver with ferric nitrate.
I first had a go at etching silver about 10 years ago (like most of my jewellery making and learning!) and wrote about it here. It was a really interesting experiment, but I never managed to figure out how to put really detailed designs onto my pieces effectively and consistently. A few weeks ago, I was asked to make a ring featuring Korean Hangul (writing), and I knew that I did not have the skills to engrave the characters onto the ring. But I asked myself the question whether I could etch the characters into the ring band? So I set about experimenting to find out! Have a look at the results!
Experiment 1
For my first attempt, I printed out the Korean Hangul characters for “taekwon-do” using my home black & white laser printer and some plain white paper. (In case you’re wondering, I chose to print out “taekwon-do” as the commissioned ring is for a fellow taekwon-do student!)
I printed one out with the characters in black (the bottom right corner), and I also inverted the image so that the characters were in white against a black background. My ultimate goal is to etch the characters into the metal, rather than have them raised out of the metal. But I did them both ways to take a look at the effect!
To transfer the design onto the silver, I applied a medium hot iron (no steam) for 3-4 minutes. There was a lot of trial and error for this! After the metal had cooled sufficiently for me to handle it, I put it in a pot of water to soak off the paper. Then, excitedly, I peeled off my makeshift paper transfer to reveal…
So, the transfer where I’d inverted the characters came out relatively clearly. However, there were quite a few paper fragments stuck to the metal. The version with the black writing just didn’t come out. I scraped it off to try a different technique.
Here were the results after 3 hours of etching in ferric nitrate solution:
The photo on the left shows the etched metal – it doesn’t look like the characters have etched clearly. However, after applying a Liver of Sulphur patina, you can see that the characters did etch into the silver. I wasn’t happy with this result, though, as I don’t think it’s a clear enough etch. On to Experiment 2!
Experiment 2
By this point, my husband got involved and started researching alternative ways for me to get the design onto the metal cleanly. For Experiment 2, we got hold of some Overhead Projector (OHP) film – do you remember this stuff?! When I was at school, our teachers often used an overhead projector for lessons and annotated it as they went. I seem to remember a lot of OHP maps, with a lot of pen squiggles from my Geography lessons! The theory is that OHP film is better at transferring the laser toner onto the metal under heat.
So, I printed out the same characters for “taekwon-do” using my B&W laser printer, directly onto some OHP film. (Incidentally, OHP film is not cheap! I picked up a packet of 10 from Ryman’s for £15.99… which is probably not too bad if you’re only using a tiny bit for a ring!). After printing out my transfers, I applied the same technique with an iron on medium heat. I ended up having to do it about 3 times, because the toner did not transfer consistently to the metal. But when I was done, I got a much cleaner image of the design, and finished the rest with a black Sharpie. (And just before anyone says anything to me… yes, the Korean characters are backwards. I forgot to reverse my image before I printed! Luckily this is a practice run!)
Again, I etched the metal in a ferric nitrate solution for 4 hours. And here was the outcome:
I was really happy with the outcome of this practice run. The characters came out quite clearly. With that in mind, I agreed to make the ring… of course, I really struggled with getting the OHP film to stay on the thing ring band, and after 4 hours of trying, I still could not get a clear print of the design onto the ring band. To counter the OHP film sliding around on the metal when I placed the iron on top, I resorted to sticking it down with masking tape. It does help, but makes everything really sticky! Anyway, using the OHP film on the thing metal ring was a real disaster and very frustrating! I call this “the silver etching graveyard”:
At this point, I took a break from the ring!
Experiment 3
Not wanting to give up with etching, and because I needed the technique for my sweetheart brooch, I decided to hand paint a design directly onto sterling silver. Luckily, the brooch had a larger surface area than the ring, and I managed to keep my hand steady while I painted on the design. For the brooch, I used some Black Out Varnish.
After the 3 hour etching time, I got quite a deep etch. It was maybe a little less defined in certain places – likely because I didn’t manage to lie my piece completely flat on the surface of the ferric nitrate. I’ve since learnt that sticking the metal to a piece of polystyrene works really well for keeping the metal just at the surface of the solution, making a much more even etch!
Experiment 4
Still needing to get the Korean characters etched onto a thin silver ring band in a clear and consistent way, I had another (final) go at transferring the Korean Hangul. By this point, my husband had done more research and made more suggestions to me. So this time, I attempted to transfer the design onto the ring using Blue Press N Peel transfer paper. I picked up a pack from Amazon – £15.99 for 5 pieces of paper! So double the cost of the OHP film! But totally worth it!
After the first attempt, I could see that the image transferred very clearly to the metal. However, I cleaned the design off and reattempted another couple of times because I had a hard time putting the transfer on straight. Have a look for yourself!
Again, I etched the ring band for 3 hours in ferric nitrate solution. And here was the outcome. This is without any patina! I was so happy with the clarity of the etch!
I had bought some ferric nitrate powder the last time I attempted silver etching. And I still had some left… in a small, unmarked bag, with no instructions on how to make it up! Given that I have no idea whether ferric nitrate expires at all, I decided to buy a fresh batch. It turns out you can buy ready made ferric nitrate solution! I picked up a bottle from Etsy, which was really quite convenient and cut out another nerve wracking step for me!
Conclusion
If you’re hand painting a design onto silver, then get some Black Out Varnish. It paints on really nicely, and as long as you have a good brush and steady hand, you’ll be able to paint on quite a nice design. Just remember which bits you actually want to etch, and black out the rest!
If you’re not hand painting a design and want to print something from a computer, then you can get really good results using a simple B&W laser printer. Just turn up your clarity, make sure to print your design in reverse and invert the design if you’re planning to etch the design into the metal (rather than leave it raised out). In my opinion, the Blue Press N Peel transfer paper gives the best and most consistent results, but I’m sure you can have a lot of fun repeating these experiments! Why not have a go and share your results with me in the comments below? If you enjoyed reading about etching, stay tuned for my upcoming post on my first commissioned ring, which incorporates etching into the design (or better yet, subscribe to my newsletter and be the first to know when my latest posts are released!).
Thanks for reading!
[…] I could put some Korean Hangul (writing) on the ring. I’d recently started experimenting with etching onto silver, again, so I felt that I could manage it. Eventually, we decided that I would etch on the Korean […]
[…] If you want more details on the etching process, check out my etching experiments. […]
Great post!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!