I learned how to do the salt etch at our fellow LEr, Cristabman house and it's so nice not to worry about the chemicals since I am a klutz.
Disclamer... I am in no way a pro at this just sharing what worked for me, use this tutorial at your own risk
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Setup is easy and cheap,
Kosher salt and water I used hot tap water but was told distilled is the way to go. Just saturate the hot water with as much salt as it will hold.
I used a square glass nut jar
Heavy copper wire for leads from the power source to the jar it looks like 18 gauge that I used
Copper I have just used the stuff from Hobby Lobby
Fish tank bubbler from Wal-Mart
Now for the scary part, I did this and am no way telling you it is safe but it worked. I cut the end off of an AC to DC charger, this is what it says on the little black box that plugs into the wall,
Class 2 Transformer
Input 120V ac 60Hz 10W
Output 12V DC 500mA
Strip about an inch of the wire lead and use electrical tape to attach it to 4" heavy copper wire leads. Make an s shape out of the wire so it hangs over the edge of the glass jar and you can hang the copper from the bottom section of the S that will hang in your salt solution. These will need to be replaced as they get etched through.
Use your resist of choice to draw your design onto your copper, I used sharpie but it didn’t hold on as long as I would have liked.
Hang 2 pieces of copper in the jar sitting directly across from each other, the side that bubbles gets left in the side that didn't gets the copper you want to etch. If someone can help a girl out is the side that bubbles the positive or negative side?
The electrical part can also come from a battery if you don't want to walk on the wild side.
I left the copper in the mix for 20 min but would leave in longer if my sharpie would have held.
This is smaller than the photo's turned out maybe 2.5"x3.5"
The brighter color is where the sharpie was and is the higher part of the design.