My step mother was always losing her casserole dishes at community functions. She’d bring a hot dish and without fail the dish would go missing. Permanent marker isn’t so permanent after a wash with Dawn and stickers didn’t even hold up in water.
One year I thought – hey, why not put her initials permanently on the bottom of a Pyrex casserole dish, that way as soon as it’s empty and someone looks down they know it’s hers – there’s no deny it.
Last summer my Step Mom told me that was one of the best gifts she’d ever received and she wanted pie plates done in the same way.
This isn’t very difficult, but you will be using harsh chemicals so before we begin please make sure you have secured all children and pets in a safe place away from the chemicals and that you won’t be bothered for at least 5 minutes.
Also make sure you have the necessary items to clean up after your done to make sure little hands don’t touch the work area.
Project: Etching Initials into a Pie Plate
You will need:
Duct tape,
X-Acto knife,
Armour Etch Glass etching cream
and a pie plate.
You will also need a sink with warm running water, eye protection, you’re old clothes, rubber gloves are nice and paper towels.
Note:
* You will be working on the BACK of the glass so anything you want to etch will need to be backwards.
* Do Not etch the glass on the side where you will be placing food.
* I know it reads Duck Tape, but I grew up in a house where my dad did HVAC – it’s Duct Tape.
Unless you’re gifted in font design you will want to draw or printout the letters that will be etched into the class. I do this by typing the letters into something like Word or Photoshop, making the letters around 300 px and printing them in reverse (t-shirt option)
Remember you are working on the back of the dish or plate so you need to print the letters backwards so when you look through the plate it will read from left to right.
Once you have the letters drawn or printed, turn the Pyrex dish over. Place one layer of duct tape across the dish barely overlapping the last layer.
Next tape the letters onto the duct tape.
Take the X-Acto knife and carefully cut through the paper stencil and the duct tape.
Remove the inside tape, leaving what you don’t want etched covered. Make sure that you press firmly on all the areas you don’t want etched. Any bubbles will allow the etching cream under the tape and that can be disastrous.
Now for the chemicals.
READ THE DIRECTIONS that come with the etching cream.
In a well lit, well ventilated area, free of children, pets and distractions, set up your working station.
Make sure you put down some paper towels, have a place to put the brush after your finished. Put on protective eye wear, you don’t want to get this stuff in your eyes. Read the Directions that come with the etching cream!
The directions say to put the etching cream on the glass and wait for 1 minute no longer. However, is that 1 minute from the time you started or 1 minute from the time you get the etching cream spread all over? I don’t know. I do 1 minute from the time I have the etching cream spread all over the area I want etched and it works for me.
I don’t have any pictures of the project with the etching cream because I don’t want to handle my phone wearing the gloves and I keep the gloves on to apply the cream and to rinse it off – sorry. But make sure you cover the areas you want etched with a thick layer of cream. If you can’t see the glass under the cream you’re doing it right!
After a minute or whatever the directions state for your bottle of etching, rinse completely.
NOTE:
* Please keep in mind that the directions for the etching cream I am using have changed since I started doing this 5 years back – so always read the directions.
* When the etching is wet, it doesn’t appear. Yeah, it’s crazy. The first time I did this I etched it twice. Just let it dry and you’ll quickly see the etching appear.
Once the cream is completely rinsed away, remove the duct tape and ta da!
I always run the items through the dishwasher just to be sure all the cream is off. And I run the etched dishes through alone! And then I do a cycle with nothing in the dishwasher to make sure all the chemicals are gone – I’m a little nervous about this stuff. You probably don’t have to be as obsessive as I am.