Posted by Chuck Wood on July 27, 2010 at 08:52:05:
Is there an alternative to Nital to etch away 1008 steel from copper tubing?
We cross section a brake tube flare. The tubing is double walled 1008 steel, with very thin copper bonding the walls together. The Nital etches the steel away, exposing the copper, so we can see the actual flare formation. Attached is a PDF, where the last slide shows the copper very well. Since we’ll be doing a lot of these cross sections, we’d like to avoid this Nital, which is a mixture of Nitric acid and a lot of other nasty chemicals (liver problems). I tried hydrochloric/muriatic acid last night and it didn’t touch it….