Acid for enclosure etching?

[zombie_rock123]

As someone thats heeding your warning and discontinuing using the acid and peroxide mix, would the acid on its own be any safer from a wishing to continue to be able to breathe point of view? Or would that still produce chlorine?

[m-Kresol]

As someone thats heeding your warning and discontinuing using the acid and peroxide mix, would the acid on its own be any safer from a wishing to continue to be able to breathe point of view? Or would that still produce chlorine?

hydrochloric acid is better, but still harmful in some points. It doesn't produce chlorine, but it is basically just a solution of HCl gas in water and part of the gas will always outgas from the solution. It is a corrosive gas after all, so inhaling won't be too good either. Yet, it is not near as harmful as chlorine. NaOH also gives of some nasty gases with Al, so the safest would be FeCl3. I have to say though that HCl and NaOH are both ok to handle if taken care. Just make sure you take the proper precautions.

Holy Smoke Batman! Please, please, please stop using that mixture. It will produce chlorine gas, which is poisonous. It will give you lung oedema and worse if you get a high enough dosis! a friend of mine had one as he thought it would be cool to handle chlorine gas as an adolescent, so trust me on this one. This really is not the thing to use as a hobbyist without proper fume hood and safety equipment. even than, I think it's way to aggressive for Aluminium which should work just fine without the Hydrogen peroxide.

Felix

Believe me I don't inhale the fumes. I do it outside with no issues. I use so little of it too. I'm not a chemist but I am a pharmacist so I know about the dangers. I'm not very happy with it anyway, so I'm going to try the other bases/acids mentioned here (lye and ferric chloride. Not together though, lol)

good to hear. knowing the dangers is the best precaution you can take.

[Orbis_Ignis]

Yep, you can that stuff is serious business. It eats that aluminum so fast. I imagine it gets through the toner too, which why my stuff doesn't come out very clean. I ordered some Ferric chloride from Amazon and I probably go get some lye from the Lowes.

I really like the idea of etching and then giving the etch some color. But I want it to come out with clean lines and no little divots in spots. If I can't get it to work well, I'll probably just my wife to cut some vinyl for me.