When it was time for more electrolytic etching I decided to try the trickle charger as the source. Well . . . whoever named it was accurate: trickle means trickle. Even the C batteries caused more bubbles in the saltwater when they were hooked up. My friend Pat had a great idea to check the local electronics store for a battery that would suit our need (desire) for speed. Plan B meant a perusal of the battery aisle. I now know why UPS units for computers are so heavy – they have all these dense batteries inside of them.
A guy in the test/measurement department obliged us and broke out some new leads to test whether the chosen UPS battery had a charge. Yes, it did. And, it works very nicely. The good news is that when I drain the battery, I can hook it up to the trickle charger and recharge it. So, the trickle charger will be used indirectly after all.
Pat had a great idea to hide the leads behind a piece of wood to reduce the salty moisture that could deposit on them. The 18 gauge copper wire holding the cathode copper kept being etched away and dropping the etched copper piece into the solution.
After doubling the copper wire, in order to obtain double the time we had before the copper fell into in the bath, I remembered that I’d covered the leads with electrical tape before.
The yellow duct tape masked off the ends and back of one of these bracelet-to-be copper pieces. I kept taping and covered the leads, giving the copper all the time in the solution that I wanted. After three etches, the solution slowed down a bit, which was perfect because the bracelet-to-be pieces will be forged so they need to keep a decent amount of thickness to them.
On the above piece I covered the entire back and edges with rubber cement, which held up well in the saltwater solution.
I was in a rubber cement mood, so all of these textures were the result of applying rubber cement and then scraping it off with a toothpick.
