first in flight

months ago i purchased some etching solution from radio shack after seeing the impressive results my dear friend Karin had achieved with it and a sharpie.

finally i got around to trying it.

since i can’t ever do anything the “easy” way, i went all out. coated a 6″ x 1.75″ 18 gauge sheet of brass in black satin hard ground and let it sit overnight.

the design i am using is from google maps’ satellite view of a US military aircraft boneyard in tucson. I’m pretty sure i first came across this on npr.org, but it certainly wasn’t the first time i became entranced using google maps. i had originally intended to cut out the little airplanes with the saw, but when i wanted to test the etching, this design seemed like a prime candidate.

what’s really cool about the ground is that it’s not hard, so when i transferred the design using graphite paper, i actually ended up with little indentations, which made it much easier to guide the scribe along the details of the design. cool.

so this took a while. and by a while i mean, several hours. tiny tiny drawing is time consuming.

the black is the applied ground, the gold is the exposed brass. on top is my scribe, and the white part is my design!

i gave it an approximately 90 minute bath in the acid, then rinsed it. I could see there was a nice amount eaten away already, so I proceeded to scrape off the rest of the ground, leaving just the little planes intact. i really let go a bit and went for something rough…

i was thinking about peter beard’s book, The Eyelids of Morning, where he talks about how the Turkana responded to the airplane:

“The Turkana reacted with shrieks of laughter – directed not at the flying machine but at the funny Americans. Such comical fellows! They virtually ignored the aircraft.”

They ended up sitting in the shade of its wings instead of either marveling at it or investigating it, as one might expect (in fact, as most Americans do at events like air shows).

I wanted this design to feel removed from our day to day routine of air travel, to reduce the airplanes to a simple pattern, to shapes, which i guess best reflects their existence now, laying there, wasting away in the desert. Still totally suitable for shading oneself from the heat of the sun.

basically, i wanted to make this bracelet the way a Turkana would have made this bracelet, with no reverence to the engineering marvel of flight.

heavy.

here are the results:

now i have to anneal and form it, i wonder how the hammering and forming will affect the design… i etched it rather deep knowing that the hammer would tend towards flattening the design.
Actually it was soft enough I didn’t have to hammer it at all.
It spent the night in the tumbler and is nice and shiny now. I can’t wait to see how the patina forms on it as I wear it. I think I will line the inside with leather to prevent it from turning my wrist green as I really don’t want to varnish it.

Two more designs heading into the acid this afternoon!

still a little rough around the edges but that won't stop me from wearing it out!

still getting some copper plating from the pickle, but it's growing on me. trying another new bath this week with spring water.

the details! the details! if i'd given any thought to them... i honestly had no clue how exact this would be.

pretty copper bits and shiny brass bits - can't wait for the patina to develop!

here i was just desperately trying to remove the ground. that acid picks up everything. to great effect!

macro! wicked close. i think i love this technique.

these last two pics are from the phone… i like this second one too! i should show you more pictures of it. my third design did not work out so well as i got very impatient. these things happen. but now i will have to be very very patient as i wait for more brass to come to me!!!

who wants a bracelet? these will not be very expensive, maybe, $20? :) for you my lovely blog readers, and only you. :*