Saturday, January 1, 2011

Strange Brew

Michael McCarthy sent over a shot of his nicely done Elder Sign pint glass. I was surprised to learn he engraved it by hand instead of chemically etching it.

"I've tried the etching paste before but I didn't care for the results, the image was too light/foggy and the pasted didn't etch very deeply into the glass. Instead I used a silicon carbide grinding bit for etching glass and ceramics. After that I wiped Folk Art wicker white enamel paint into the etching (which requires you to bake the glass to set it) to make the image pop more as the image disappeared with cold drinks or light colored drinks. The paint can be found in any hobby store. The whole process was really quite simple and the end result is very nice. Unfortunately, it only works well with designs like the elder sign. I wanted to reproduce the extremely rare Chessex Arkham Pale Ale pint glasses but that type of detail would require a laser for etching."




I've tasted quite a few brews that probably should have been served in a glass with a protective sigil on it.

1 comment:

McDrunk said...

If anyone is interested, I used a Dremel tool for the etching with a photocopy of the image taped inside the glass. It's really easy even for non-artistic folk.