Etching is a technique of cutting a surface using acid, used by artists such as Dürer and Goya. Metal engraving is an industrial and artistic technique, and can be done using chemical, photochemical or electrochemical processes. It is used in various industries and by artists such as Cedric Green.
Etching, from the German word meaning “to eat,” is cutting a surface of a material using acid. Engraving is done on a variety of materials including glass, Plexiglas and metal. Metal engraving, in particular, is an industrial manufacturing technique, an artistic technique, and a technique for branding and identifying property. Etching was a technique used by many European artists including Albrecht Dürer, Francisco Goya, Rembrandt and James A. McNeill Whistler to make prints before other processes gained favour.
In an artistic context, etching falls into the category of intaglio, along with other techniques such as aquatint, drypoint, engraving and mezzotint. Daniel Hopfer and Urs Graf were early metal engravers, but Dürer is credited with being responsible for the 16th-century metal engraving fashion as engraving became an art form. Metal engraving was first done on iron, but around 1540 copper engraving began to predominate.
The metal etching method can be a chemical process using acid, a photochemical process or an electrochemical process. The basic technique for acid etching metals is to apply a resist to areas of a metal plate, either the entire plate or just the areas you do not want affected. The parts of the metal to be etched are not covered or the resist material is scraped off them using tools such as an etching needle and an échoppe.
The metal plate is then dipped in acid which eats away at the exposed surface of the metal, creating lines. To make a print, the resist is removed and the surface inked. When the surface is cleaned, the ink remains in the engraved lines and can then be captured on the paper when passed through a specialized printing press. Variation of line depth is accomplished by periodically removing the plate and covering lines that have reached the desired depth with resist material. This can also be done by applying the acid directly to the plate instead of wetting it.
Industrial metal etching is also called “chemical milling”. It is used in semiconductor manufacturing, the circuit board industry, and the creation of aircraft components in the aerospace industry. Photochemical etching is a variation of this process where photolithography is the method of creating the pattern. It is used in the art world by Ostrom Glass & Metal Works. Electrochemical etching was developed for the aerospace and automotive industries in the 1940s and is only recently expanding to uses in medical technology and use in artistic settings. It is used by artists such as Cedric Green.
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