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After the lamination, printing and development stage comes the etching and resist stripping process.

Photo etching occurs when the resist coated metal sheet is passed through a series of chemical baths and washes, where the ferric chloride etchant attacks any bare metal lines not protected by the UV sensitive photo resist.

As such, the profile lines and any internal features can all be etched within a single process, to the highest quality finish. This video highlights our example of Qualitetch business cards, which require precision in manufacturing and a quality finish for everything; from tiny precision features to detailed text and fonts.

In the etching stage, once again, the sheets are passed through the machine at a slow and steady pace to ensure the etchant is sprayed evenly over the whole sheet. At this point, several sheets can be placed on the etching line at once, enabling us to fulfil orders of all sizes, for all manner of intricate and complex designs.

At the end of the process line, you can see the sheets are held in place by mesh frames, but when the frame is removed, the etched designs are now individual components.

Of course, we then have to remove the UV sensitive resist from the now etched components, in order to get back to the bare base metal. So, the individual components are placed in wire frames and passed through a stripping solution, coming out at the other end free of resist, in bare metal form.

The process is now complete, with only the final dimensional and visual inspections required. You can see this final stage in action in our fourth video instalment.