Etching: Re-working the Etched Plate

Materials: 

  • Future Acrylic Floor Wax
  • Photo Processing tray
  • Degreasing mechanism / material for copper plate

Reworking Relief parts: 

  •   Degrease 
  •   Coat with Future 
  •   Sand off top Future 

Reworking Intaglio Surfaces: 

  • Ink plate with relief ink (relief areas are protected and can re-etch) 

Other  

  • Salt into screen filler 
  • Use Ulano 60- Water soluble screen filler for temporary stop out/ stencil 

    • remember - Speedball Screen filler is not water soluble after it dries 

Offset 

  • Ink on surface 
  • Clean roller on surface 

    • roller onto plate

Blockout technique(s) 

  • Clean plate after removal from Ferric 
  • Remove plate from Ferric. 
  • Rinse with cool water 
  • De-oxidize with white vinegar and table salt solution (3 T salt to 1 cup water). Rinse. Dry plate. (copper oxidizes - in the ferric chloride and needs to be cleaned )
  • Rinse with water 
  • Blot dry and then with hair dryer 

    • Use acrylic hard ground as a stop out by painting out the lines that need to be blocked out.  It is important to use two coats for this making sure that the first coat is dry.  Two thin coats are better than one thick coat.  Thick coats can crack when they dry. 

Hard-ground washes 

    Disturb the hard ground surface while it is wet.  
    • Impress with textures. 
    • Paint with brush charged with water to create wash like tonalities. 
    Disturb the hard ground surface while it is dry. 
    • Tusche like washes 
    • Re-dissolve the ground and open up areas of the plate using a mild ammonia and water solution and Q-Tips..  The stronger the solution the quicker ground is removed. 

Cleaning the ground off the plate:

  • If the plate is etched within the first day the Future can be removed with a soda ash solution consisting of 1 teaspoon of soda ash in 1 litre of water (Same as the ImagOn developer). As the acrylic goes through an extended hardening/curing process over a 24 hour period the soda ash solution will not work after the Future has been on the plate for more than 12 hours. After this time a 10% solution of ammonia and water, Mr. Clean, or Comet cleanser is needed to remove the Future. There are non-ammonia smelling floor strippers that are also available for removing FUTURE. But caution should be exercised with these products. 

Selective Plate Tone  

  • The plate can be proofed or editioned at any point without the need to remove the Future. The final edition can be printed without removing the Future. You can selectively add or subtract plate tone. Cotton buds dipped into a mild ammonia solution can be used to selective remove the FUTURE to allow plate tone to infiltrate the printed image. This presents an image manipulation opportunity that should not be ignored. 

Using the FUTURE as a stop-out varnish:  

  • FUTURE can also be used to "stop out" areas that you do not wish to etch while other, adjacent areas of the plate remain in the Ferric Chloride solution.  
  • Use two thin coats of FUTURE rather than one thick coat. A thick coat has a tendency to crack (which may be of great interest to some printmakers). If you feel that the actual store bought FUTURE is too liquid, leave it out for a few hours in an open photo developing tray to allow the water particles to evaporate from the acrylic. Monitor this evaporation until it reaches the desired viscosity.
  • After rinsing your plate with water, check the depth of the etch with your fingernail, and look at it through your magnifying glass. You can prook it without removing the FUTURE, and if it is too pale, you can etch it further.

    • For printing, see the handout.

Colored ink tips  

  • When working with colored ink, a solution of 50% Future and 50% water can be used to coat the entire plate. This thin coating does not block up even very fine marks yet serves as an effective barrier for the inks from contamination by the metal