Scratched Photo Etched Tender.

[Dave Harris sctchbld]

Let me get this straight. You scratchbuilt this magnificent model... by starting with a copy of a tender? You physically placed a tender on a Xerox machine, and this is the result??

I'd love to hear more about your technique, very impressive I must say!

Dave

"Uuuuhh---uuuhh --- AYupp, Mr Bergen, thats what I did. "
It''s been awhile so I don't remember ALL the details now --- I never keep notes --just muddle thru usually.
The thing is, for Photo Etching you need a "negative " to place over the brass with opaque areas that are to be etched away when the brass is immersed in the acid . Where light penetrates the negative the chemicals ( photo resist) are hardened & will withstand the development process , protecting them from the acid.
Not wanting to try to draw the tender & details I had a copy made of the various parts of it , no dissasembly was done other than trucks. The copies were on card stock which I had enlarged &" reversed" so that the black became white & the details were now in black , about 4 times as large. This allowed me to use ink to enhance the color & then have a "transparency "made at the correct reduction to make it like a photo negative. The rest followed normal photo etching procedures. The most impoprtant part of the process is getting the brass CLEAN-- Clean --Clean, before applying the chemicals.