Etching Brass – Mailbag

 Craig writes:

In  July ’07 I bought a 1960 Lone Star El Dorado boat which needed total restore. I found the yahoogroups Lonestar restorers club which has been so helpful. A year after hauling the boat home, it hit the water. As the boat nears it’s 50th anniversary, I wanted to reproduce the missing dash plate plaque in golden brass. Your site was helpful in the etching process. My buddy in Illinois who works in vinyl signs & graphics made the logo in vinyl decal stickers which work awesome as a protective mask for the etching. 45 minutes and a 5 amp draw etched DEEP into the brass with crisp clean edges. (I just need to trim the outer perimeter of the plate) I plan to make several of the plaques to give to fellow restorers who went through the same painstaking process of restoring a classic boat.

Stephen writes:

A quick note about the piece. I used a soft suede leather for the cover. Under the copper and brass plate is a much more firm piece of leather. The plates are riveted to the leather with brass snap rivets. The pages are secured with a second piece of leather sewed inside the cover. The center binding leather has Chicago screws through it which holds the paper through punched holes. With this design, the journal is actually refillable. However, due to the short shaft of the Chicago screws, the journal can hold only a small amount of paper, approximately 100 pages. I used a leather lace to stitch the binding to the cover.

I particularly like the way the lower right corner is cut away (or perhaps etched through) to reveal an etched copper plate below.