This assignment was pretty straightforward: Water jet a steel diamond with some symbol or shape in the middle. I had never used the water jet at all before, so this was pretty exciting for me. I decided to cut the iconic cover from my favorite album, Abbey Road.

I found some clipart of the Beatles crossing the street from this source:
http://clipart-library.com/clip-art/beatles-abbey-road-silhouette-4.htm
With some help from Kasia, I got the image traced and inserted into Adobe Illustrator.
I uploaded the design to the computer and set up the thin steel sheet metal that was available in the wet lab. There were some issues with the processing, and it took a bit to get it to cut what I wanted. Even with the precision of the water jet, lots of the details of the contour were lost. I cut two pieces and they turned out beautifully.

I decided to sand the pieces with 220 grit sandpaper because I was worried about damaging the thin piece with a file. I got it all cleaned up, and then gently filed the corners to make them a little less sharp. Next I sandblasted the pieces and gave them a nice finish.

I wanted to try powder coating the parts, but since finals are right around the corner I decided to just use spray paint. I tried to use a nice metallic bronze color, but I had problems with the spray paint. Both bottles I tried would spray consistently for a second or so and then start sputtering very inconsistently. Eventually I got it all painted, but there are a few blemishes that resulted from my uneven paint job. I also decided to try stringing the piece up after word and clear coat both sides at once. I think this was a good idea, but I should’ve done one side, let it dry for ~15 minutes, and then done the other side and hung the piece. The clear coat ran down towards the bottom of the piece and added some more unattractive blemishes.

I’m still happy with how these turned out, despite the issues in the aesthetics. The cut itself turned out very nicely, and the 4 figures are instantly recognizable. Over all this project took me around 2-3 hours, with around half of the time spent in the wet lab and the other half post processing and painting. Around an hour of that time in the wet lab I got help from Kasia.

Factoring in the costs:
I maybe used half a square foot of sheet metal. 1.5ft of 22-Gauge sheet metal can be bought for $12 from Home Depot, so I will say $4 for material costs. I also used a small amount of spray paint, sand paper, and clear coat, which I’ll round to $3. I also used a small amount of water jet sand, power, and water which combined have a cost of maybe $5. Finally the hour of help I got probably cost the OEDK around $10.
That makes $4 for material, $3 for post processing, $5 for operations, and $10 for labor, for a total of ~$22.
I thought this was a pretty neat little project. I’ve neglected the 2d machines in the OEDK for a while now, and I would love to find more reasons to use the water jet and laser cutter.