Engraving Flasks

The struggle of figuring out what to get for someone who has everything has been around as long as gift giving holidays themselves.  I love giving handmade gifts, but let's face it, they're not always practical.  Luckily for me, a few months ago, my boyfriend casually mentioned that he didn't own any flasks, and he thankfully didn't go out and buy one for himself.  I figured a plain steel flask would be a little boring, and Casey's not super into all the cheesy booze quotes that can be found on most novelty flasks.  He's a bit more snobby classy when it comes to his whiskey, so I figured a personalized flask with his name on it would be the best course of action.  Besides, this way I could experiment with this cool stainless steel etching technique I saw on Pinterest, and he doesn't have to worry about anyone stealing his alcohol.


The first thing I did was order the flasks. I decided on this six pack from Amazon, since I figured I would need one to practice on, I would probably mess at least one up, I didn't know how many I wanted to make in the first place, and I have my own 21st birthday coming up (29 days, but who's counting?). I also picked up a funnel, but that's another story.

My initial setup

If I learned anything from high school physics, it's that Christmas lights are a great source of cheap rubber coated wire in a pinch.

The next thing I did was assemble the mechanism.  I used this tutorial as a guideline, and kind of adjusted things as I went along.  I eyeballed the salt and vinegar solution and stirred it with a cotton swab for the test flask.  The most important thing I learned from that is that the solution became more potent the longer it sat.  The first etching didn't go so well, but after the sodium and chloride were allowed to fully dissociate overnight, the next few sets went a lot faster.

I read that the current was too small to do any damage to humans, but I wrapped my fingers in electrical tape just in case.  It ended up being unnecessary.

The first couple marks I made were just to play around and test out the etching mechanism.  Then, I practiced using stickers to make a stencil.  I saw this guy on YouTube who said that nail polish was actually the perfect paint to use, since it won't let the current pass through and, in my case, was readily available. Looking back, I probably should have used white because not all of it was dissolved when I put the acetone on it, but a subtle hint of red isn't very detracting.

Anyway, I first tried putting the stickers on, painting the nail polish on top, then immediately removing the stickers.  Most of the nail art tutorials on Instagram do this, so I figured it must give a cleaner line than waiting for it to dry.  I was wrong.  It smudged a lot, and made a huge mess.  What worked much better was to allow the polish to dry overnight before I tried to take the stickers off, and it gave a much cleaner relief.

The first flask I did for Casey turned out a little more rough than I had liked.  I took the capital C and D stickers, stuck them to the flask, used electrical tape to tape out a square around them, then just went to town burning the metal away.  I stippled the cotton more than I rubbed it for this one, so it ended up looking vaguely like hammered metal, but I think it looks cool and rustic.

Everything's so shiny that it's hard to get a decent picture of the finished flasks themselves.

For the next one, I arranged his name in stickers, painted over them, waited a day for the paint to dry, then removed the stickers.  It was harder to see the difference between the original steel and the etched steel since there was a smaller surface area and it was hard to compare with the bright red polish between the two, so I went ham.  I did a lot more tracing motions this time around, and ended up with a pretty cool looking etch.

Some things I learned:  Definitely do this in a well ventilated area.  I started in my bathroom with the fan on, but my dorm bathroom is tiny as can be, so I moved over to the stove I don't use because my burners don't work, and used that hood as a sort of a fume hood.  The reaction does produce toxic chlorine gas, but not enough to do serious damage unless you hover over it and purposefully inhale as much as you can.  Also, it smells kind of bad.  The cotton will start to discolor as a result of the reaction, but it doesn't have an effect as far as I can tell.  The only result of using the discolored cotton is that the salt solution will start to turn that burnt brown color on the steel, but it is easily wiped up with a paper towel.  Definitely let the vinegar solution sit overnight.  I used the same solution for the three days I was working on this, and it seemed to get stronger with each day.

Before the etching

After the etching

Honestly, I think the hardest part of doing this is making sure the stickers are aligned properly before you try to paint over them.  This is a technique that definitely works better for shorter quotes, as longer ones will probably tend to get tedious.  I will say that I am looking forward to the one I'm going to make as a 21st birthday present to myself.

Note: I was so excited to give these to him that I forgot to take a picture of the finished ones together, so as soon as I get one from the man himself, I'll post it here.