Copper Bike Fender

Step 4 Preparing the surface for Ferric Nitrate

Once we had the general shape, we trimmed the square ends using a left-cutting airplane snips, filed the edges so I wouldn't cut my legs wide open, sanded the surface to get it nice and bare, and then gave it a good cleaning to get any oils from our fingers off the surface. I'm not sure, but I think he may have used alcohol to wipe it down.

The purpose of getting the oil off was so the ferric nitrate would really get into the metal.