The goal of this project was to personalize a diamond shape, plasma cut it, and post process it. I first chose to personalize it by plasma cutting the Nike swoosh onto my diamond. I downloaded the SVG file from here. After making my file in Illustrator I began to plasma cut it on a sheet of 1/8″ stainless steel. I used a feedrate of 40 and a .125 in arc lead in.

After plasma cutting, I started to begin post-processing. The picture below shows the diamond before any post-processing. As you can see, there is clearly a lot of dross on the edges on the diamond and on the edges of the swoosh.

I first used the angle grinder and a clamp to remove most of the dross.

Afterwards, I moved on to the stone grinder to smooth out the sides of my diamond.

I then used the belt sander to smooth out the faces of the diamond. I used the wire brush afterwards to clean up the faces even more.

I then finally used a file, 220 grit sandpaper, and 400 grit sandpaper to remove any small imperfections on my diamond. Below is a picture of what my diamonds looked like after the post processing.

I then decided to spray paint my diamonds black. After the black paint had dried, I added a white paint splatter effect to sort of mimic stars in space. I did this by putting on a glove, spray painting my gloved hand, and then making a flicking motion with my fingers. This method, although unconventional, worked pretty effectively. However, because of my method of spray painting and how the paint dried, there were unsightly imprints on the edges of the diamond. I ended up having to use the sandblaster to remove all of the paint from my diamond. I then repeated the painting process of spray painting it black, and then splattering with white paint. In order to spray paint both sides of the diamond without having to wait for one side to dry, I propped one of the corners up onto a box. This method let me have access to both sides, but the diamond sometimes slipped and fell over, which was frustrating. Another issue I ran into was when I applied the gloss clear coat onto my diamonds. The gloss sort of “melted” away my paint after I applied it. This may be due to the paint not being completely dried, or because I applied too much clear coat.

Overall, I think my diamonds turned out pretty well. I am not completely satisfied with the paint job of my diamond, due to the imperfections caused by the aforementioned clear coat. There is also a small area on one of the corners of my diamonds which did not get clear coated, as that was where I was holding my diamond. However, visually I think it looks very cool and I am happy with how the white paint splatter turned out. I learned that post-processing is a pretty tedious and time consuming process, and that spray painting is also a pretty difficult skill to perfect.

Cost Analysis:

Stainless steel (6″x18″ at Home Depot): $7.45

https://www.homedepot.com/b/Hardware-Metal-Sheets-Rods-Sheet/Stainless-Steel/Steel/N-5yc1vZc27vZ1z0r6yiZ1z116eq?storeSelection=577,6985,566,6806,6525

2 cans spray paint (around $4 at Home Depot) = $8

1 can clear gloss (around $4 at Home Depot) = $4

https://www.homedepot.com/b/Paint-Spray-Paint/Rust-Oleum-Painters-Touch-2X/N-5yc1vZapz5Zbm2

Plasma cutter (30 mins at $55/hr) = $27.5

https://www.plasmaspider.com/viewtopic.php?t=8162

Stone grinder, wire brush, sandpaper, file, angle grinder = $10

Labor: 7hr ($12/hr) = $84

Total: $140.95