Custom Glass Etching

I saw someone post their instructions on how to do this awhile back in another thread so I took a crack at it and am super impressed with myself and wanted to show it off. This is my second attempt and I plan on doing many more; first one was for a generous BA in a BIF, @zekeman17 might have a picture of it because I don't. Anyone else try their hand at this?

 

Originally saw it in this thread here, post #21 by @rinhaak . He used special paper to stretch over the glass, which I couldn't find. Instead, I layered masking tape over the glass, drew my pattern on, then used a razor blade to cut out the template, which is the hardest part. After that, you just need to get yourself some etching cream and throw it on the surface for about 10 minutes and voila! The entire process is quite simple so it's awesome to see what kind of designs you can make. The only issue I've found with masking tape is that is tends to leave behind a tiny bit of adhesive residue which doesn't give the most uniform etch afterwards, but it doesn't look bad and if your design was simple enough, there's no reason you couldn't take a little alcohol and clean the surface before etching.

 

Thanks man, appreciate the feedback. I was really surprised how well it turned out, I expected it to come out a blithering mess.

 

Painters tape is a genius idea, I'm trying that for the next one for sure. The tiny cutout sections of masking tape tend to want to shift around the razor blade so I'm curious to see how well painters tape holds, it might be the perfect compromise if it can stay in place.

 

My newest creation: Glass of the Cthulhu. Now I just need a bottle of Cthulhu to pair with it.

 

I tried the painter's tape, the biggest issue was that the sketch was too hard to see against the blue background. The almost white of masking tape is much easier. And when using masking tape, I was taking my blade and just kind of rubbing the tape off so as to not disturbed the areas that needed to stay intact, and that's what left the majority of the residue behind. So now I just make sure I have a clean cut, pick up a corner, and gently pull a section off with my fingers and it leaves a lot less residue behind, it's almost clean. Here's the pic after I cut out the template and pulled the empty sections off.

 

I did do that with this one actually, it's still tough to get into the tiny crevices because the q-tip isn't fine enough and once the alcohol touches the glass, it tends to spread wherever the hell it wants, but with enough practice it's manageable.

 

The water line there is actually a 12 oz. marker.

 

I'll have to find out lol.