Etching of a Brass Ingot. House Stark Sigil

I wanted to try myself in etching of brass. For testing, I printed House Stark's sigil on the office paper (laser print). To get a result I had to print an image 5 times on the same sheet. Therefore, I've got enough thick layer of the ink.

I've read that for the purpose of transfering an image from the sheet to the metal, special paper is usually used but I didn't have it, so I tried ordinary office paper for laser printers. I also tried photo paper but because of the thickness or paper surface I got smeared picture.

Direwolf looks really awesome. Remember about the negative. The image under the ink won’t etch. All surfaces which are not covered with ink, paint, wax or something else will etching.

I've decided to use the brass ingot which I have casted some time ago for the first experiment. In the future I'm planning etching on the things I'll cast.

I used an iron to transfer the picture from the paper to the brass ingot. I used an iron for approximately half an hour. When I removed a paper - the picture was on the ingot. Only some places such as where I used an adhesive were not covered.

I covered reverse side with paraffin and front side, in addition to the toner, with the office correction fluid.

My solution consisted of approximately 1.5 liters of water and 1 or may be 1.5 table spoons of copper sulfate (CuSO4 5H2O).

After that, I took the brass ingot (anode+) and brass plate (cathode-) and put them into the solution. I used an automobile charger for the electrolytic etching: approx. 10 volts, 9 amps. It took me an our or so to finish etching. The distance between the cathode and the anode was between 1 and 2 inches.

On the final stage I sanded the surface to remove what was left from the toner, correction fluid and wax.

I like the result I’ve got. It looks like this thing is very old and have some corrosion on the surface. In fact, of course it is not a corrosion. It’s because solution found the way under the toner and correction fluid. May be I was wrong in the voltage or amps or the distance between an anode and cathode. Nevertheless, for Game of Thrones Stark’s emblem it looks good!