HOW TO ETCH STAINLESS STEEL TUMBLER WITH CRICUT | HOW TO ETCH METAL AT HOME

In today's episode, I show you how you can quickly and easily engrave

metal

,

stainless

steel

, or copper with the help of your Cricut cutting machine, so let's get crafty. Hi I'm Michael and this is Mr Crafty Pants your cricket and craft channel where I post qriket tips, tricks and tutorials every week so if you are new here and also want to learn how to use or master your cutting machine

cricut

, you may consider stamping the subscribe button and then ring the bell for all notifications because you my friends don't want to miss a single minute of qriket especially during the month of october because during october is craftoween which are basically projects of Halloween-themed qriket, but besides that, because you all know how.

Sometimes I love being extra on top of that exclusively for members of my texting community. Well, I'm also giving away a cricket creator pack and all of you, I'm here for it. I'm very excited now obviously you can see from the name I'm giving away it's a qriket maker but on top of that I'm giving away every color of starcraft hd permanent adhesive vinyl which is my favorite as well as a 30 foot roll of medium attack transfer tape, which is basically like magic. I love those things, as well as my favorite weeding tool, which is the pencil, the weeding tool, like I said before, this is exclusively for members of my texting community.

If you're not a member of my texting community, don't worry. because joining is super fast, super easy and super free, all you have to do is text me at 502-878-7189. Can you say hello, hello, how are you? You will receive an instant response where they will ask you to enter some information, you will just have to follow the instructions, click on the little link that enters your name and what you are basically doing when you do that is putting your information on my phone so I know who you are with I'm talking. Now from there all you have to do is watch these episodes of Craftaween, but here's what you need to make sure you watch from the beginning to the end, because in every episode of Craftaween there is a hidden Halloween theme. phrase now, the way you find that hidden Halloween themed phrase is through these little keywords that appear throughout the video when you see one, all you have to do is write it down super quick, keep watching, keep eyes wide open and once the video is over, all you have to do is text me that little hidden phrase and if it's correct, then you'll be immediately registered to win that qriket maker bundle, which is so, so exciting so again if you're not a member text this. community, text me and we'll take it from there, so now for today's project and y'all, I'm really excited about this.

I've been working hard trying to figure out the best way to record

metal

more specifically. engraving

stainless

steel

now this is what I have tried a few different methods and they have worked, they have all worked, but what I am going to show you has been what worked the best for me and is also the fastest. and the easiest thing, so it's like a win-win-win right now, as far as the things that you're going to need to make this little magic happen, it's obviously a qriket or withdrawal cutting machine, it could be any cutting machine . I'm using my Cricut machine and then obviously a piece of metal.

Now I'm using the stainless steel

tumbler

here. This is vinyl 143. I love it. Weighs 30 ounces. It has a double wall. It's like vacuum sealed. Keeps things as cool as I do. I love this, so this is what I'm really customizing today with this method. We're also going to need some kind of stencil and I'm actually going to use permanent adhesive vinyl as my stencil so I recommend that. Since vinyl color isn't a mountain of beans, find a color that you can't really foresee using a lot and then use that. You'll also need some transfer tape and I'm using No surprise, but my all-time favorite transfer tape as well as my all-time favorite weeding tool and literally everything again will be listed and linked to all of you in the description box below.

I even go one step further and really try my best to find promo codes that everyone can use to save that money because everyone knows I love a bargain. Now obviously we're going to need a solution that will actually

etch

our metal and I'm using this ferric. Chloride here says it's a copper

etch

ing solution, but trust me, it works great for stainless steel too. You'll definitely want to wear some safety gloves, as well as a mask and even some eye protection. From there, we're going to I need some baking soda and this is another one of the safety precautions, but this is also the way that you're actually going to be able to get rid of the ferric chloride.

This baking soda actually neutralizes the acid within the ferric chloride and makes it where it's safe to dispose of, but also, obviously, if it gets on your skin or anywhere else, try to wash it off like meat as quickly as possible and then try going over it with some baking soda on top of that. "Everyone, we're just going to need one design to engrave on our glass, so I'm going to jump over here to designmentals.net and show you the one I'm using today." So here we are at designbundles.net and this is the svg file I'm using and you all like it, I'm obsessed with this, I think it's so cute, hocus pocus is literally my favorite Halloween movie.

I love, love, love this design. and as you can also see up here in the top right corner, it normally costs four dollars and right now it's half price for two dollars. I can't make any promises about what that price will be when the time comes. Once you check this out, cross your fingers that it's two bucks and of course I'll have it listed and linked for you in the description box below. What I'm really going to do now is jump here. to qriket design space and as you can see I have already downloaded that file and then uploaded it to qriket design space in case you are new to this world and don't know how to download those files from design packages and in fact how to upload them to qriket design space, don't worry because I have you covered.

I actually made a video on that topic, specifically for svg files and font files, and I'll link to it right here as well as at the end of this video and down in the description box below, but for now I already have this in the canvas and if we take a look here on the right side of the page at the layers panel, we'll see Let's see that this svg file has multiple layers, which I would say most svg files have multiple layers. This one has, let's see five in total. Here's what we're going to use this design for basically as a template, so there's really no need. for layers and actually having layers could mess it up, so let's just click on this whole svg file, on the whole group and let's go down here to the bottom right corner and select weld and weld basically does what it looks like it's going to do.

It welds or merges all those layers into one and it's pretty much permanent once you get it right, so it's all set to become one layer, however, we need to resize the image to make it fit. our stainless steel

tumbler

so let me grab my tumbler right here and I'm also grabbing my tape measure here too and I'm going to take some quick measurements to see what the best size would be for this. Okay, now this is it completely. Subjective, what you might think could be too big or too small. You might think it's absolutely perfect.

However, we must remember that this is a curved surface and if it is too large it could cause some problems. I'm thinking about a maximum height of about three inches or so and as for width, I'm thinking about a maximum width of about three and a half inches, so let me go ahead and create a template in qriket design space because everyone knows that I love my templates and I'll go from there okay so for my template I'll come here to the left side of the page and I'll click on the shapes and let's make this template a square there we go and I'm going to go up here to the top of the canvas where it says size and the first thing I'm going to do is unlock this little lock because what that pathbox job should do is lock the proportions, which means that as it is now if I change the width to 10 inches it would change the heights so that also be 10 inches, but what we really want is to have a different measurement for the width versus the height, so I'm going to go ahead and unlock that and for that height I'm going to make it a solid three inches and for the width, I'm going to put here 3.5 and I'll go ahead and right click on our layout and then select send to front, there we go and I can go down here to the bottom right corner. of our layout and click on this little resize handle, drag it in and then we can fit it perfectly into our template and basically this gives us the control of resizing so we know it's going to be the perfect size when it's time to actually applying it to our glass so I think it's going to look better right there so we don't need this template anymore so let me go ahead and select that and then select this little red x up here just to delete all of that and now let's go here towards the top right corner and let's select make everything okay so this is just permanent adhesive vinyl we're not using any kind of htv so we don't need to mirror this so let's move on. and go down here to the bottom right corner and select continue and let's go ahead and start up our qriket and we'll start cutting okay so for the material that I'm actually using today I'm going to go ahead and come over here and select explore all materials and then I'll write premium for premium vinyl.

However, you may be using a different type of vinyl than me, so use whatever cut settings work best for your material. and the best way I found to do it is to just make test cuts try a test cut see if it cuts well see if it removes well to see if it actually comes off the backing paper and then from there you can know if you really need to change the pressure , do a different cut setting all together or if you're ready, so I'm going to go ahead and select premium vinyl and then I'll go down here to the bottom right corner and select ready.

Alright, I'm going to go ahead and load this into my machine, however, look here also there are different pressure settings, so I would like to say that each blade has its own story, it has its own wear and tear. and it tears and you may need to change that pressure to less or more depending on the life of that blade basically so I'm going to go ahead and load this up right to remove our vinyl from our cutting mat which I like to do . It's actually turning my mat over and peeling it off the vinyl instead of the other way around that really helps prevent damage to the vinyl, so now I'm just going to cut out our design and actually, I'm going to keep this because I'm going to need it here in a moment, so if we normally remove this, what we would basically start by doing is removing all the excess vinyl around our design and then basically removing it. remove all the different cavities from each letter, however, since we're creating a sort of stencil with this, we'll actually do it the other way around, so we'll remove our entire design from all the letters individually and then leave everything.

That's it, so here's our template and what I'm actually going to do now is apply this to some transfer tape or rather I guess I'll apply some transfer tape to this and then we'll put it on our stainless steel. steel tumbler now what I usually like to do is spread out some of this transfer tape sticky side up and then apply the actual vinyl face down on top of the transfer tape. Now I'm just grabbing a squeegee tool, I'm going to polish the transfer tape to the vinyl and now what I'm actually doing is flipping it over and removing the backing paper from the vinyl and the transfer tape instead of the other way around. , it's not that you can't do it the other way around, you just find this way a lot easier to be honest, you really just want to go slow every time you do this, you'll make sure nothing lifts up with the backing paper, you want to make sure that all that vinyl, all the little details are left on the transfer tape, so now before we apply this to our stainless steel tumbler, I'm actually just going to wipe it down with a little bit of alcohol, though, a little bit of Acetone would probably work much better.

I just don't do it. I have some of that on hand, so we cleaned that surface and now I'm just taking abit of parchment paper here because even though I'm not actually layering anything, I'm still going to use that whole parchment paper trick essentially. to place our decal perfectly on our tumbler and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's like the best trick in all of positioning or vinyl layering history, so I'll link it here and below. description box below and whenever the time comes to do itremove the transfer tape just take it super slow again just making sure nothing wants to get up now you might see some wrinkles on this vinyl and to be completely honest with You, that doesn't really matter at all, as long as all the vinyl that is around the letters is firmly adhered to your surface it will be fine, so now it is firmly adhered to our stainless steel tumbler and remember when I said to have this at hand we'll need it here in a moment.

Well, I'm about to use that now and basically what I'm going to use this for is to cover as much surface area as possible on this side of the glass so that none of this ferric chloride comes into contact with any of the parts. stainless steel that we don't want it touching, so what I'm actually going to do is take off this little lid here and start cutting a little bit of this off and applying it around this glass, so here's our glass after it's been basically completely covered. with vinyl, so you can make sure that none of this ferric chloride gets into any part of the glass that we don't want to etch, essentially okay, so I'm actually going to pour the ferric glass. chloride on this regular plate because hopefully you can see in the chamber that it has a little lip where it's actually going to be able to hold the liquid, but it's also about the right size or we can put it upside down. on the plate and hopefully let it absorb the ferric chloride.

However, I'm going to take another sheet of vinyl and put it right on top of this mug, so there we go, it looks horrible. At the moment, but I'd rather be safe than sorry, so now I'm trying to place this upside down in the solution, so we're going to let it sit in that solution for 15 minutes. I recommend keeping it. a timer set, I mean, as soon as the 15 minutes are up, we're going to apply some baking soda to neutralize the acid and then we're going to rinse and wash all of that and you guys, here's the finished project.

I am absolutely beyond obsessed with this now a little confession. I left that solution for a little over 15 minutes and I can say that every time I put it on for 15 minutes, the edges like lines are much sharper than they are correct. here and I also did it where I left it on for 30 minutes and the lines are much blurrier than here too. I really think the difference comes down to how long you leave it on at least for this specific vinyl 143 stainless steel tumbler again it's all listed and linked in the description box below but regardless I love how it turned out I love it the look, I love the feel, I love that this is 100% absolutely permanent. like etched into the steel itself, I really see this being something that a lot of guys would love to have with their name on it or you know, maybe their favorite sports team on there or really the sky is the limit, I think this would be really really great.

Christmas gift without all the time, attention, effort, details and money it takes for epoxy cups. Now, if you liked today's video or learned something new, be sure to hit the like button and leave a comment. in the comments section below, both of those things have helped me tremendously here on youtube and to all of you, I just can't thank you enough while you're at it, if you're new here and maybe you'd like it. know, learn a little more about your

cricut

or maybe even master your cricut cutting machine. Consider stamping the subscribe button and then ringing the bell to receive all notifications so you never have to miss a single minute of qriket, too if you want.

Join my texting community and enter to win the qriket maker bundle. Be sure to text me that Halloween quote at 502-878-7189 and until next time, be crafty.