For this week’s project, we were tasked with plasma cutting and post-processing metal diamonds. To start, I plopped a fern leaf on the diamond template in Adobe Illustrator and used Shape Builder to make the two shapes into one. I modified the spacing between the leaflets as I was concerned that plasma cutter would have difficulties with thin lines. After further making some minor adjustments, I exported the file was a DXF and was ready to plasma cut!
Unfortunately, I began to encounter some issues. First, the stem of the leaf was too thin, so Torchmate refused to make a path. It took two more attempts at widening the stem to finally make Torchmate behave correctly. I did a dry run on the aluminum sheet, and it appeared to trace the shape successfully. While cutting, however, the plasma cutter kept stopping at the stem of the leaf. A lab tech explained to me that the intricate lines may have caused the plasma cutter to “loose” the arc near the edge of another cut. Therefore I had to start from square one again.
Firing up Illustrator, I chose a much simpler design, consisting of two gears. Thankfully, the plasma cutter cleanly cut out the two shapes without issue. The cut metal contained lots of imperfections, so it was time to apply some post processing
I began by pulling away the large pieces of dross using pliers. This worked out surprising well and was very satisfying. Next, I used a whetstone to smooth out the outside edge of the diamonds.
I’ve seen brushed aluminum and I really like both the aesthetics and the texture of it. So I decided to replicate the texture using 150 grit sandpaper. I leveled the diamond on the vice and started to sand the metal in one direction. This process took a long time, and my hands were sore afterwards. However, I think the result was very successful, especially compared to the unprocessed piece.
With the brush effect done, the metal was subsequently very clean. I decided spray paint the pieces. Since I still want one side to be bare brushed metal, I covered the bare side with painter’s tape. I chose blue, since I think blue and silver matches well. I carefully applied three coats of paint, waiting a couple minutes between each coat. After one side was cured, I flipped the diamonds and repeated the steps on the other side. Here are my completed diamonds:
Cost analysis:
The two diamonds would fit on a 12” by 12” sheet of 1/16” aluminum, which costs $9.72. The sandpaper I used costs $4.27. The plasma cutter would cost $60 per hour; I spent two hours using it. The spray paint is $5.27 per bottle. Finally, I spent 5 hours from start to finish and assuming I’m being paid $10 per hour, labor would be $50. Therefore, the total cost to make these the two diamonds is $129.26
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