This week we were supposed to pick a state to plasma cut and then post process it so it looked nice according to our own standards. The plasma cutting part was very easy – we just set it us exactly like the instructions told us to, set the machine to the right speed, and cut out our states. Because this was so easy, I might still need the instructions the next time I need to use the plasma cutter, just because the process is a little long and harder to remember after one go than the laser cutter was. But I do like knowing that I have used the plasma cutter and feel capable of doing it again.

When I started post processing my Louisianas, I still didn’t know what I wanted them to look like. This means that when I started filing off the dross and softening the edges of my pieces, I filed them a lot, maybe almost too much, it seemed like. But I made sure I didn’t lose much detail in the more irregular coastal area of Louisiana. After as I was satisfied that they were nicely filed, I decided I might as well see how they looked wire brushed. I liked the way that looked except for the fact that on the back, there were some imperfections in my metal pieces, and on both the front and back, there were some decent sized scratches, some of which had been there before, plenty of which I had caused  by trying to file away some of the dross on the back. I decided I would just spray paint them after that, but that was easier said than done.

I had a cool plan for how I would spray paint my Louisianas – gold, green, and purple, with a little fleur de lis and some chains of circles that looked like beads, because Mardi Gras was one of the best parts of living in Louisiana. I should’ve just given up on that when I realized there wasn’t any purple spray paint, but I decided instead I’d just use a green base and do the details in gold, using a vinyl stencil of course. I thought I would spray paint them green first and, as they were drying, cut out the stencil and then finish them up. Turns out that even though there are tons of cans of bright green spray paint, only one of them wanted to work, and just barely at that. So I struggled with painting them green and just could’t get them to look even halfway decent with that paint so I just scrapped that idea and decided to paint them solid gold because I was just sick of it by then.

The gold spray paint worked wonderfully and dried quickly, which made my life so much easier than the green paint had. But because it wasn’t a hassle to repaint them, I kept trying to get every little imperfection out of them. This worked fine for one of them, but for the other, I’m pretty sure I just made it worse every time. Eventually I just accepted it and its little imperfections and decided I was done because I was just tired of spray paint at that point.

This week’s lab taught me that trying to make things completely perfect can just make them look worse in the long run. Because I filed my states so much, I left a lot of scratches on my material, which meant I couldn’t just brush them, and then it made covering them up with spray paint harder. I also learned that I really don’t like taking pictures of things in the middle of the process, as evidenced by the fact that I don’t have any pictures of my pre-filed or green states. I’ve definitely gotten more comfortable with the plasma cutter, spray painting, and accepting imperfections, though.