Chemical Etch / Photo Etch Services

The process of chemical etching is also known as chemical milling or photo etching. Chemical etching uses acids along with other chemicals to dissolve unwanted material. Predominantly this material is metal, the range of metals possible is vast from yellow metals such as brass, copper, beryllium copper, etc to ferrous metals including stainless steel, carbon steel and mild steel, up to a thickness of 1.5mm. For thicker requirements Photofabrication can offer laser cutting. All of these metals etch at a different rate depending on their chemical composition.

Photofabrication have over 35 years experience and a large pool of technical knowledge allowing us to control the speed of etch and produce chemically etched metal parts with both high accuracy and high quality. For a full list of metals that can be chemically etched please see our Metals page.

Benefits of the Chemical Etching process include:

• Low Cost Tooling
• Low Cost Design Changes
• Half-etched forming
• Prototype to Full Production
• Rapid Delivery – from 24 hours
• Metal Properties Unaltered
• Burr Free
• Identification Marks Easily Added at No Extra Cost
• Tabbed-in components for Greater Accuracy

There are many benefits to using the chemical etching process as shown above from burr free components and low cost tooling to high accuracy and fast turnarounds. For more detail please see the Chemical Etching Benefits page.

Chemical etching can also be used selectively; through a process of masking unwanted areas one can selectively etch specific areas of the part. This type of etching is regularly used in the aerospace industry to remove shallow layers of material from aircraft components and missile skin panels. The amount that can be removed can vary; one could remove anything from 10 microns (0.0004”) to over 0.5mm (0.020”).

There is a phrase often associated with Photofabrication and chemical etching, “If you can draw it, we can make it”. This is usually the case, however before drawing your requirement it would be worth reading our page on Chemical Etching – Design Guidelines first.

To understand the Chemical Etching / Chemical Milling / Photo Etching process please visit our Process Tour.

Chemical etching is a term often used interchangeably with photo etching.

If you think this process can benefit you, please contact us or telephone 01480 226699.