In the post-processing exercise we used a plasma cutter to create a design on a diamond tile shape. I was excited for this because I had seen the plasma cutter in action a lot but never had much of an opportunity to use it.
The shape of the diamond tile reminded me of seeing a cube from an angled perspective. This inspired me to create a design based off a dice block, with the five holes representing the five dotted-side on a normal die.
Using the plasma cutter was the most painless part of the whole endeavor. Compared with laser-cutting, which required a lot of fiddling with settings and positions, the process of plasma cutting was a much more straightforward. My design did not require a complicated path, so plasma cutting took less than an hour.
Immediately after cutting our four pieces, my partner and I angle-ground the slag off edges of the metal diamonds and from the interior holes. This greatly improved the look of our pieces and would make future post-processing easier.
It was not until maybe a week later that I began to use other post-process techniques on my tile pieces. In that time, my pieces had managed to collect more rust. I attempted to wire brush the rust off, but it was a futile effort. Instead I opted to sandblast the rustier of the two pieces and belt sand the other.
The sandblasted result was much more aesthetically pleasing than the belt-sanded piece.
After the initial sanding I attempted to make my pieces look even nicer with spray paint. I initially put down two coats of white primer. Then I switched to a metallic gray paint for the sandblasted piece and a white paint for the belt-sanded piece.I finished off my post-processing effort with three coats of clear coat on each of the tiles. However my painting experience showed worst here; the surface of the two shapes contained more bubbles and uneven tones after clear coating than after the initial spray painting.
Overall, I enjoyed having an excuse to use the plasma cutter and spray paint. If I had given myself more time to experiment with these tools, the final result for this activity would have turned out nicer.
