I’ve used my K40 for a multitude of projects, wood, perspex, rubber stamps, paper and cardboard. I stumbled across a YouTube article about using mustard to etch onto stainless steel. I tried it an thought I’d been caught out with an April fool joke. However further research seemed to indicate it was possible with something called dry moly lube. As the article was American I thought I had no hope of getting it in the UK. However RS components sell it for around £15 a can - (CRC Lubricant Molybdenum Disulphide 500 ml Dry Moly Lube, Dry Moly Lube). I gave a couple of coats, allowed half hour drying in between and etched my design using 8mm sec, 43% or 14 m/a power. Once done I just clean with white spirits and its done. I’m not sure how permanent it is but I did soak the item in water overnight and next day it was fine.
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Looks like a fun technique to try!!!
Nice result! Got the same one from RS and did a couple of tests but results were not as dark. Will replicate your method of multiple coats next time.
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I used CRC Dry Moly with an 80 W machine. It worked great on stainless steel.
Compared to CerMark etc it’s pretty messy, though. It’s a lubricant. You can’t just rinse it off with water.
The original patent (for the process) has expired a while ago. I kinda expected that we’d see some cheap knockoff products, but that didn’t happen for some reason.
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I’ve done mustard with some decent results. Important, cheap stuff works poorly. Grey Poupon all the way!
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