Update 8/7, Part 1

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I was able to work a bit on the clock for the past couple of weekends. First, an update on the clock face:
I found that ironing the toner to a clean, shiny piece of brass was a non-starter. I found the best technique to be scrubbing the brass with a green Scotch-Brite pad in perpendicular directions improved the toner adhesion quite a bit. The second was to thoroughly clean it with acetone to remove any oils or other dirt that may have accumulated. Regular alcohol was not sufficient. After I did both of these I got what I hoped would be two good sample tries. The first was using laser printed on inkjet photo paper like many online sites recommend, and the second was a glossy laser paper. I liked the second better because I was able to get it printed at tabloid size, whereas the inkjet photo paper was letter size only. I should have grabbed some shots of the two samples. The inkjet paper left only toner behind and it was nice and shiny, the glossy laser paper left quite a bit of paper residue behind. In either case, it looked like the transfer was pretty good, so I moved onto the galvanic etching.
I took a bucket of water and dissolved about 2 cups or so of the root killer (Copper Sulfate). It left the water a bright blue color as many other's attempts did. I taped the positive lead from my battery charger to the back of the plate to be etched and submerged it all the way to the bottom. I suspended a scrap piece of brass about 4" above it with some bent coat hanger. The battery charger was set on the 12V/10A setting and I could tell something was happening because the charging indicator was about 1/2 way between "doing nothing" and "full out." Within a couple minutes, the scrap plate was starting to turn black on the underside. Here's a pic of the setup:
The results were impressive. I did the first one for about 20-25 minutes to get a nice etching. I think it took so long because I didn't mask off the edges and it really had to remove a lot of material. The second went for about 15 minutes and got a real good etch. This method of etching really does work, but the toner didn't stick as well as I would like and left a lot of pitting and not a very clean look. I would be ok with a little bit of pitting -- it would add to the antique look of the piece, but this was overkill. See my sample results 1 and 2:
At this point, I'm tired of wasting time trying to find the "perfect" paper to do a toner transfer and etch. I'm investigating now having the image screen printed to the brass in black ink. I'll probably lacquer over the paint to help protect it.

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