so do i sharpie on a piece of photo paper with my tracks and then iron on to the copper.............or do i just sharpie onto the copper clad than use the ferrous chloride
Figured somebody ought to post a few safety and sanity points to consider...
Your ferrous chloride usually comes as crystals, and needs to be mixed with water. READ instructions and warnings completely. This can be very dangerous if you don't. Use a container with a wide opening. I use glass, rectangular baking dish, might be for bread (don't cook much). Plastic might melt, metal will corrode, use glass to mix. Measure the water you need, put it into the glass container first. Slowly add some of the crystals, just a little at a time, stir with a plastic spoon. Take your time, the faster you mix in the crystals, the more heat it generates. I let it cool off before doing anything more with it, after all the crystals are desolved. Maybe not the best storage, but I use the bottle from a quart of oil (cleaned out well), know it'll not breakdown. I use the glass baking dish for my etching tank, and nothing else.
Ferrous Chloride is poisonous. Keep it contained, clean up spills quickly (water/baking soda).
It stains everything! No known way to fix that. Choose your work space and clothing with that in mind. Will save you some grief later.
Highly corrosive, it'll eat pretty much any metal! Definitely don't dump any down the sink, even diluted. Any woman in the house will want to kill you for screwing up the chrome or stainless. Probably not too good for the pipes.
Clean up... Figure I ought to share, although not the most responsible, but really not that bad for the couple of small board a month I do. Anyway, I etch on my back porch. Use a plastic forks to handle the boards, small plastic funnel to pour the solution back into the bottle. I usually just rinse everything off out in the yard, with the garden hose and lots of water. Really shouldn't be doing that much damage to the environment. A pint of spent solution is another story, which I'm not going to expand on...