Etching Print Process - 03.02.23
For this process, you will need a zinc-plated steel plate as this is the medium that the ink will sit on/in the grooves of the plate.
This process starts with us cleaning the plate using the whiting powder and some ammonia to get rid of the natural oils that have been left on the surface when manufacturing the plate. The ammonia has a smell to it and thus, the extractor fan has been turned on during this process.
After thoroughly cleaning the plate with the ammonia and whiting powder mix (with the help of a shaving brush), this is then rinsed and acid-free newspaper print is used to dry the plate.
After this has been done, a layer of hard ground is put onto the steel plate. A hot plate is used (at the heating temperature of 6) so that the hard wax ground is able to be spread across the steel plate. A gelatine roller is used to spread the wax on the steel plate.
After this, a clamp with a piece of paper is used to hold the plate so that the plate can have a layer of carbon on top so that we can see where on the plate we have scratched. The carbon was taken from a candle held close enough so that the plate has a layer of black, soot-like material on it.
After this has been done, the plate is then touched up with liquid ground (where the clamp has bitten into the grounding of the plate). Any imperfections made on the ground can be cleaned up by using liquid ground.
After the liquid ground has hardened enough, you can then move on to removing the ground to create the print that you want. This is done by etching away the ground as we do not want to scratch the plate underneath the ground wax. If mistakes have been done, liquid ground can be added to touch up the mistakes.
The plate shown below is my own, used for Unit 14 as a journal/diary graphic. I wanted to experiment with printmaking to create an original plate with human imperfections.
To etch the plate, a bath of Nitric Acid is used for this.
Before submerging the plate, the back of the plate was covered using parcel tape. This ensures that the grooves made in the ground were the only thing that was eroded in the Nitric Acid bath. Gloves are recommended when handling the acid bath as this can irritate and cause an acid burn if left unwashed.
A timer of 4 minutes was used and a feather was used to get rid of the bubbles formed when the acid was eroding the metal. Getting rid of the bubbles when in the bath ensures that the metal does not erode too much when in the bath. It also ensures evenness when etching.
The feather was used every minute till the timer ran out.
After this was done, the plate was rinsed using water and put onto acid-free newspaper and patted down to dry. To check the etching before taking the ground off, a pin or a magnifying glass was used to check the depth of the grooves.
After this, the grounding was cleared using white spirit and a cloth.
Then it was time to ready the starwheel press and the paper to print onto. The paper was soaked in water whilst inking up the plate. It is nearly the same process as the dry point print-making process but uses oil-based inks, which need white spirit to clean off. To ink up the plate, the plate must first be cleaned thoroughly using both white spirit and Brasso to ensure that there is nothing that can cause wear on the plate or fingerprints on the plate. Anything that is acidic/dirt on the plate can cause wear on the plate and can create imperfections.
After cleaning, the plate is then put onto a hot plate to heat up the etched plate so that the ink used is much easier to put onto the etched plate. The ink is spread onto the plate by using card (just like the dry point process). After this was done, the inked-up plate is then polished with a rag, leaving the grooves with bits of ink.
Then acid-free paper, plate and soaked paper (after being dabbed dry) is then fed through the star wheel press. The outcome for this process is shown below;
