Here are a few shots of a scratch built tender I built to test photo etching techniques I had read about.
I had Kinkos photo copy on clear acetate the sides of a Riverossi Y6B tender to get the rivet & panel line detail . When I asked them to copy it , The clerk rather curtly told me " This aint star trek, we don't have a replicator" ! Took some convincing to get him to do what I wanted , but I was trying to do it without having to do a lot of art work.

One word of caution, if you are going to try photo etching , be aware that you NEED a good respirator to avoid the Zylene fumes, they are NASTY! I was only exposed to them for abour 3 minutes ( with out protection because I did not know I needed it) & got a violent headache that lasted for hours. Research on Zylene showed that it causes severe brain damage with prolonged exposure. BE Careful!!

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A Couple of More shots. Hope you like it.

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Wow that looks great

Please describe your technique in detail. That looks great. I am planning to build a CNJ long hall tender and this just might do the trick .

That looks nice. Like the rivet detail.

I used to do a lot of etching with zyl.....What was I going to say?

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

Puddlejumper Wrote: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.

That's very interesting, nicely done!