Over the last few months New Leaf has collaborated with custom guitar creator Liquid Metal Guitars to create a series of etched aluminum guitars.
A shot of a guitar back etching
Water droplet pattern resist in between etches
A proposed Snake Skin Guitar design
Here you can see how the guitar appears during etching, the blue film is Puretch and acts a resist from the acid. The film is holding up very well considering how hot the plate becomes during etching. The shimmering you can see on camera is the acid bubbling and releasing fumes. At the end the plate had become so hot Peter had to drop it and cool it with water.
And the final step, cleaning the Guitar post etching, this was done with a splash of lacquer thinner, note how the puretch shrivels up and pops off in some places when in contact with the solvent. The finished Guitar back is starting to reveal itself
The final piece.
Below you can see the plate dropped in the ferric chloride and see the reaction taking place underneath. The reaction slowly becomes visible through the sludge in an almost perfect image of the text. Below Are images of the etching, note the disconcerting swirling fumes.
The finished Guitar back with “Liquid Metal” text
And finally our most recent guitar: A custom drawing of a Great Dane, exposed into puretch and etched again with ferric chloride into a full guitar body.
The finished guitar body and below: a print pulled from the guitar by inking and printing as an intaglio plate. We are tempted to print this in relief… more to come.
