[vic05]

Hello everyone, back in high school I remember doing a project of staining a mirror.  The procedure was as follows:
1) clean the mirror.
2) cover the mirror with some type of adhesive paper.(I'm not sure what it is called.)
3) Draw the image with pencil of the picture you want on the mirror.
4) Cut out the image but leave the rest of the mirror covered.
5) and finally, the teacher took the mirror and added a solution to the mirror so only the cutout parts made contact with the solution.

Now my question is, does anyone know what the solution might be??
Thank you...

[fledarmus]

Hydrofluoric acid is quite good at etching glass, and really too hazardous to handle for kicks. There are gel formulations that have been developed with buffered fluoride solutions that you can find in almost any large hobby store. At least in the US. Here is an MSDS that describes one such formulation, called Armour Etch:

http://pages.minot.k12.nd.us/pdf/msds/armour_etch_cream.pdf

Most plastic and rubber films are resistant enough to these gels to allow you to use them for stencils. We used to use white or clear peel and stick shelf liner.