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Mike Jackson's
Chip Against Etch Technique
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| I tried Pat Mackle's version of chipping right to the edge of an etched line. On the second try, I got it to work, but while I was doing it, I also tried a slightly different version using asphaltum to protect the outlines. The steps below illustrate my alternate method. |
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| After all the deep etch lines were blasted into the glass, I frosted the face of the letters. Then, I removed the blast stencil that surrounded the lettering. The decorative border had glue chip areas which wouldn't touch etched lines, so I left the stencil on those areas and did the "standard" chip method. Using a #0 Mack Quill, I outlined the areas I wanted to protect—the deep etched outlines—with asphaltum. It takes a little skill with the brush, but you only have to be careful on one side. Any asphaltum that gets on the frosted face of the letter can be easily removed with a Q-Tip and laquer thinner. |
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| After preparing and heating the glue as normal, I poured the glue in a small squirt bottle with a metal nozzle and squirted it on the raised lettering (the lightly frosted areas). You need to use "some" care, but if a little glue gets in the asphaltum areas, you can easily peel it off once it gels. The glue will not grip to the asphaltum, but I think it is safer to remove excess. |
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| It only took about 10 minutes to dome the glue onto all the lettering and all the borders. I waited until the glue gelled to the normal consistency and then cut along the edges of the stencil on the border design. After the cuts were made, I removed the remaining border stencil. The glue for this technique must be a little thinner in viscosity to go through the nozzle. As a result, I know I have to dome the glue even thicker than if it had been regular consistency. |
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| One of the "advantages" of this asphaltum process is knowing you don't have to be around at the exact moment to peel or cut remaining glue or stencil away from the chip areas (although, I did have to do that in this case because of the border technique). The piece was simply put in a warm room and overnight it began to chip. I live in the Rocky Mountains and we have very low humidity. By the next morning, it was beginning to chip, so I moved it to my lighted drafting table to let the heat from the balasts and lights quicken the chipping pace. |
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| By later in the day, my project had fully chipped, however I had a few frosted areas as you can see in the "I". |
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| I made an "executive" decision and squirted a little more glue in the problem areas. Looking back, I would have simply recoated the entire face of the lettering. It wouldn't have taken any longer and my chip would have been a full "double chip". |
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| Once all the glue had chipped, I squirted a little bit of laquer thinner on the panel and wiped it up with a paper towel. It took surprisingly little thinner and only two paper towels to clean the glass. I then rinsed the glass and lightly scrubbed it with some Bon-Ami and later with Windex. |
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| Here's a close-up of the final piece.
©M. Jackson 03-04-04
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