In this project, I experimented with cutting metal with the water jet and with different post processing methods. First, I found a nice template on the Noun Project that had two hearts overlapping each other. I placed this image onto the diamond template that was provided and prepared my file for cutting. I decided to make two complementary designs with one heart being cut out on one diamond and the other heart on a second diamond. From there, I sent the file to the water jet and had them cut out, making sure I started the cut from the inside. The diamonds came out pretty nice from the water jet, so I could begin to post process.

To start off, I filed down all the sharp edges that were on the diamond. This made it nice and smooth. I also planned on powder coating my diamonds, so I had to prepare the diamonds by sandblasting them.

From there, I cut out different templates using vinyl stickers. I wanted to powder coat the hearts first, so I covered the rest of the piece with the vinyl stickers. Placing the stickers turned out to be very tedious and I had to play with them for a long time to get them placed right.

Using the powder coat gun was a learning process, but I figured it out and was able to powder coat the hearts and cure them. However, at first, I was not aware that the vinyl stickers could go into the oven, so I tried taking one off at first. Unsurprisingly, I messed up the powder coat on one of the hearts and had to redo the powder coating and I cured it later. Once I figured out the process, I continued to powder coat.

I powder coated the hearts red and I decided to powder coat the borders silver. There was not much red powder so I could apply for a long time and still get a good result. However, there was a lot of silver powder and that came out of the gun more easily. I had to adjust how I applied the silver powder because of this, but I still had some spots were there was too much powder applied. These spots had some bumps once cured because of the excess powder. Other than this, the diamonds came out pretty good.

At an attempt to level some of the bumps and get rid of other little imperfections, I tried to sand down the pieces. However, this caused the color to fade and would leave the surface uneven. However much I tried, I could not get the color to be uniform across the whole diamond. The sanding darkened most of the diamond but left bright circles all over the diamond. Because of this, I chose to redo the powder coating.

To redo the powder coating, I basically had to start from scratch. I sand blasted all of the powder coating off to prepare the metal. I also had to re-cut the vinyl stickers and re-coat the diamond with the powder coat gun. This was a lengthy process, especially sandblasting the previous coat. Also, the red powder was basically empty, so the hearts were less pronounced. However, it did create a sort of gradient effect on the heart. Other than this, the process went relatively smoothly and my diamonds were finished.

Cost Estimate:

• $23.97 – 5mm x 100mm x 100mm 304 Stainless Steel Sheet (Amazon)
• $15.99 x 2 – 1 lb powder coat powder (Amazon)
• $19 – 1 hour of waterjet cutting (Wardjet.com)
• $6 – powder coating 1 square foot of metal (Angi.com)

Total Cost: $80.95