People often ask me how I etch glass so I put this short tutorial together. (if you hold your mouse over a photo a larger image will popup.)
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The first step in the etching process is the artwork. I can't really explain how to get your artwork together, each job is a different. Once you do have the artwork together the next step is preparing it for printing. For this process the artwork is printed on a clear film that will be used to make the mask for the etching. The mask simply separates the areas that will be etched from the areas that won't on the glass.

The printed film with our artwork, here on the right, will be used to block light from areas of the mask material, the green film on the left, when it's exposed to an ultraviolet light. What this does is allow light through the clear areas and the green film gets exposed.
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This is a photo of the exposure unit. It holds the film and mask tightly together around a clear cylinder with the UV light running down the center. For this film the exposure time is around 30 seconds.

After exposing the green film looks the same as before but the changes will be visible after it's developed using hot water. I have a very fine spray nozzle that I run hot tap water through to do the developing. The image to the right shows how the film looks after the unexposed areas are washed away for several minutes. The image is backwards because this is the sticky side and it gets applied to the glass.
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The glass for this project was beer bottles. The masks are applied by just sticking them on the cleaned bottle. Next a protective outer layer is removed from the mask and the rest of the bottle is taped off so it doesn't get etched by mistake. For the actual etching I just sandblast the bottles using aluminum oxide for the abrasive.

The final product. The beer was awesome and some people got a really cool memento of a great campout.

Thanks for looking.
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