Introduction: How to Etch Aluminum Panel Labels/designs With a Reusable Acid Mix

This tutorial will show you how to etch your own designs/labels into aluminum panels with a reusable acid mix instead of using electricity(the most common method).

It's a pretty good and cheaper alternative to profesional made panels for your home made synths, stomp boxes, etc. :)

As with any work involving dangerous materials, you'll have to be very careful and take any precautions needed if you are going to try this instructable.

If in doubt, don't do it!, and if you do it anyway and get hurt, don't blame me or this website, you have been warned ;)

WARNNG NOTES:


Acid can burn holes into your skin, wear some protective clothing, gloves, eye protection and gas mask with the appropriate filter designed for acids before handling it!

When the acid mix reacts with the aluminum it starts to produce acid vapours that of course are dangerous to your nose and lungs so by any means, DON'T breath that!


If you feel like this is too much for you to handle, you are probably right and is time to stop reading this and look some place else, otherwise let's move on:

Step 1: Materials

List of materials:

-Some aluminum panel/s

-A nice design for the etching

-Laser printer w/ black ink

-Some pnp-blue sheets

-Gloves

-Eye protection glasses

-Protective clothing

-Hydrochloric acid (same thing as as muriatic acid)

-Hydrogen peroxide (same thing as oxygenated water)

-A shallow plastic container to mix the peroxide with the acid (2:1 mix, depending on the peroxide concentration you may need to change the mix, I used 11vol. peroxide)

- Another container with water to rinse the panel.

-***Extremely well vented work area*** try this only if you have access to any open and well vented area, the process creates some probably dangerous, and bad smelling fumes, beware!!!
-running water(avoid any metal tool/surface... metal kitchen sink is a no-no, unless you like to spend some $ on repairs )

Step 2: Print on Pnp Blue

1.- Create your design in any vector app: Illustrator, Corel Draw, Ink Scape, etc.

2.- Flip the design before printing as you would with pcb etching.

3.- Print the design on regular paper sheet(100% scale), this will work as a guide to print on the pnp sheet.

5.- Cut a piece of pnp-blue just big enough to extend a little bit from the edges of your design on the already printed paper sheet, the extra length will help to print and transfer the design to the aluminum panel.

6.- stick the pnp blue to the printed paper sheet with some tape on each corner, use just enough tape to hold the pnp in place.

7.- Set the laser printer to high quality print, again, 100% scale.

8.- Print again, you should end with something like in the image below.

Step 3: Preparing the Aluminum Panel

Now that the pnp blue is ready to transfer, we need to prepare the aluminum panel, so:

1.- Cut the aluminum panel to the desired length.
2.- Use water sand paper to smooth out and remove any dirt/grease from the panel surface.
3.- Clean the panel with running water and dry with paper towels.

Step 4: Transfer the Design to the Panel

Now we are going to transfer the design from the pnp-blue to the panel, same method as with the pcb toner transfer:

1.- Place the panel on some scratch piece of wood.

2.- Place the pnp-blue over the panel, make sure it's well aligned.

4.- Use tape to hold the pnp-blue on each side, make sure there are no air bubbles, wrinkles or deformations and the pnp-blue lies flat against the panel.

5.- Place some piece of cloth over the panel to protect the pnp-blue from the heat.

6.-Use an Iron to heat the toner on the pnp-blue, trying to cover everywhere, after a few minutes the toner will start to look darker, check from time to time to find any missing spots.

7.- When the toner looks black everywhere, the transfer is ready.

8.- Wait for the panel to cold down, then remove the tape, leave the pnp-blue in there.

9.- Now remove the pnp-blue, there may be some spots where the toner didn't transfer to the panel, we will fix that on the next step.

Step 5: Fix the Missing Spots

As you can see on the image, there are some missing spots, we are going to fix those now:

1.- Take a sharpie pen(or any other indelible ink pen) and paint over the missing spots, retouch any spot 2 or 3 times to allow the ink to cover the spots and resist well the acid.

2.- Use tape to cover big areas/borders, etc.

3.- Picture #3 shows my panel, almost ready to etch.

4.- As you can see on image #4, I used the pnp-blue plastic left over to cover the back of the panel, this is important, you have to cover every part of the panel not going to be etched to prevent the acid from damaging the panel.

note: If the transfer ends up with a lot of missing spots or missaligned, you can clean the panel and start all over again, sometimes is better than fixing any mistakes.

Step 6: Etching the Panel

WARNNG NOTES:


Acid can burn holes into your skin, wear some protective clothing, gloves, eye protection and gas mask with the appropriate filter designed for acids before handling it!

When the acid mix reacts with the aluminum it starts to produce acid vapours that of course are dangerous to your nose and lungs so by any means, DON'T breath that!


If you feel like this is too much for you to handle, you are probably right and is time to stop reading this and look some place else, otherwise let's move on:

1.- Go to a very well vented area, put on your protective clothing, gloves, eye protection and gas mask with the appropriate filter designed for acids before manipulating the acid, remember, don't do it indoors!.

2.- Use the shallow plastic container to mix the peroxide and acid in a 2:1 proportion, mix just enough to cover the panel and remember, ADD the hydrogen peroxide FIRST, then pour the acid slowly, to avoid any acid splashes.

3.- Place the panel into the container.

4.- The mix will start to react with the aluminum producing a lot of tiny bubbles, and acid vapours, DON'T breath that! , the acid will start to eat the unprotected parts of the panel.

5.- You can take out the panel and rinse it with water(another container with water will do) to check how is it going, take it back to the acid container if it needs some more time.

6.- Let it work until the groove depth left by the acid is about 0.5 mm, you can feel it touching the panel, or taking a closer look, remember to rinse the panel before any inspection, if you let it for too long, the acid will start to corrode the toner and damaging the protected areas.

7.- When the panel is ready, rinse it thoroughly with running water, remove all the tape and rinse it again.

8.- Here comes the green part, after the panel is etched, save the acid mix in a plastic bottle to reuse it another day, it will keep the strength to etch more panels.

Step 7: Painting the Panel

Now let's paint the grooves left by the acid:

1.- As you can see I didn't removed the toner, we'll do that later, prepare some space to be able to spray paint the panel, any automotive paint will work.

***note: you can remove the toner before painting the panel if you want, just use some old cloth or towel paper with nail paint remover (acetone) or thiner... but I'd say it's an extra step not really needed as you probably want to give the panel a smoother finish later with the wet sand paper, it will remove the toner too, but is up to you :)

2.- Cover every part of the panel doing several small passes, paint, let dry, paint, let dry, etc. so the paint sticks better.

3.- You should end with something like in the picture #2.

Step 8: Finishing the Panel

Let's finish the panel:

1.- After the paint dries, use a water sand paper with a fine grit to remove the excess paint and the toner from the panel taking care to not over doing it on the recessed parts so the paint stays there.

2.- Rinse and dry the panel and that's it for panel etching.

On picture #2 you see how the panel will look with knobs.


btw. I'd like to thank a friend, without him telling me about his experiences with the magic mix(muriatic acid+ oxigenated water) and diy PCBs I would not come up with this variation on the theme, thanks simone, aka cimo :)

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