This was my first time working with metal, and it was a blast. I decided to do the shape of an hourglass to cut out on my diamond. I got everything finalized in illustrator, then was ready to start cutting!
Learning the water jet cutter took a bit of time, but the instruction sheet was very detailed and helped a ton. I decided to use steel for my cut, and basically fished around some used sheets. I had my metal centered and clamped down, and was ready to go. The area test checked out, so I began cutting. The piece came out smooth.
I immediately realigned my metal to perform a duplicate cut. I began my cut and when the cut was almost, I realized that I forgot one of the clamps! I was hoping that it wouldn’t be a big deal, but the cut ended up being misaligned. See below. The circled piece is the misaligned one.
It was getting late so I decided to do the duplicate cut on a different day. After returning to the water jet cutter, I got the duplicate cut I wanted.
Unfortunately, the new steel sheet I used was a tad bit thinner than the one I had used previously. I was worried that it would be an issue during post processing, but filing the pieces went smoothly.
After I had my pieces filed, I was ready to sand blast. I used the vinyl cutter to cut out small stickers to place on the far end tips of my diamond.
After placing the stickers, I used the sand blaster to get an even texturing on both sides of my pieces. Once the pieces were done, I applied a layer of clear coat spray paint to them and let them dry.
Once dried, I then sprayed on a layer of black spray paint.
The next day, I came by and removed the stickers to reveal the final project!
Cost Breakdown:
$20 for a square foot of 0.03″ thick stainless steel
$6 for clear coat spray paint
$6 for black spray paint
$54 for 4.5 hours of labor at $12/hr
Total Cost: ~$86
