Learning to Etch
I insist on learning to do everything by hand before I learn efficiencies – so here are the steps I went through to create my first etched designs. I sketched the skulls of Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops onto paper, then again onto rubber blocks. I carved the blocks using stamp carving blades and stamped the image onto sheets of brass. The ink-stamped brass was then placed in a bath of ferric chloride, which etched away the clean area not protected by ink. Just a few additional hours of sawing, soldering, and color treating, and I had two pendants.