Chemical Etching

Chemical Acid Etching - flexible, accurate and cost effective blanking for any volumes.

Acid etched blanks can be processed quickly, accurately and cost effectively and are completely burr and stress free. Accuracy is very good with parts blanked to tolerances starting at ±0.010mm depending upon material type and thickness, features can be positioned to an accuracy of ±5 microns. The photo etching chemicals used can pierce hardened materials just as effectively as annealed grades and nothing in the etching process will affect the RoHS compliance of your end product.

There may be many revisions to a part during it's development cycle. This is not a problem with chemical etching as all that is needed to implement a design change to the flat blank is a simple adjustment to the photo tool. This can be done in a matter of hours and is free of charge minimising any delays, disruption and additional costs.

Photo etching is a valuable tool when used either on its own or in conjunction with any of our other services i.e. component forming, heat treatments and/or component plating to give a complete solution to your requirements.

For materials that do not lend themselves to chemical etching for whatever reason, we are well placed to offer the alternatives of wire erosion, laser cutting or component machining. More details of these can be found in the "services provided" section of this website.

Acid etching is a fantastic way of producing metal mesh or other intricate shapes very competitively and compliments metal forming beautifully of thin gauge metal parts.

Materials that can be processed are Aluminium, Brass, Copper, Mild Steel, Carbon Steel, Spring Steel, Stainless Steel, Nickel Silver, Silver, Nickel, Beryllium Copper, Molybdenum and many other exotic materials.