For the plasma cutting lab, I chose to cut New York State out of 1/16th inch thick aluminum.

Starting the lab, I setup the laser cutter by following the “How To Plasma Cut” and used the formatted USA file on the plasma cutting station. To cut out my New York States I used a lower speed setting of 40in/min. This setting had the least amount of dross on the 1/16th inch thick  aluminum reference block. Despite my optimal plasma cut settings, there was still some amount of dross on both New York State cutouts. I used a powered grinder to quickly remove the dross on the rear of my cut outs. Despite the large amount of flying sparks created from the grinder, I thought the using the grinder was vastly superior to filing the state by hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the post-processing, my original plan was to use a combination of sandblasting, vinyl stickers, and spray paint. I wanted to create a light blue NY with “New York” written in sandblasted aluminum. I thought by first sandblasting, then placing the vinyl stickers, spray painting, and finally removing the stickers, I could accomplish my desired look. However, that was far from the case. I was forced to use several coats of spray paint to fully cover my state cutouts with a decent finish. But by the time I was done spray painting, I had applied too many coats to be able to remove the stickers without ruining the paint and sandblasted finish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To solve this issue, I had to radically rethink my post processing. I ended up using an orbital sander to remove the spray paint, stickers, and sandblasting. This gave me a clean slate to start over.

For post-processing part two, I wanted to achieve a clean simple painted surface. I decided to change spray paints because my first color choice took five to six hours to dry to touch and over 12 hours to dry for handling. I ended up choosing a dark teal that would dry to touch in 30 minutes and dry to handle in one hour. This spray paint created a much nicer finish that only needed one coat of paint.

Overall, I found this lab enjoyable but challenging. I really struggled on the post-processing, but I really like my finished product.