Many thanks. Have a lot of things to try again. I like the emory board idea. It sounds like I would better control overall. Rick

Thanks for the comments. Guess I have to work on my technique some more. However, it is nice to able to ”erase” one’s mistakes with the next etching session. I’m building quite a collection of things to re-etch!

Michele, You are correct, it was me and I still have your email. Many thanks. My chief concern here was that I didn’t see any appreciable difference between 100 and 400 grits of the Soft Touch pads. I was expecting to see a range from matte to more luster, repsectively. The first thing that strikes me in your note is that you specified Scotch Brite pads. However, when I went back and looked at the examples on your product pages, it noted the use of Soft Touch pads. So I went with that literally. So the differnce is the Scotch Brite pads are used to give the surface more bite and sharper colors, while the Soft Touch pads are used to remove the first anodized color from the raised pattern in preparation for the second anodizing (at lower voltage). That answers part of my other question. However, it would helpful to understand more of the technique for using the Soft Touch pads, and which grit tends to get the job done without impacting the background. thanks, Rick