I actually really enjoyed this project despite the limitations of the plasma cutter. I decided to do a sailboat, taken from thenounproject.com, because I love sailing and grew up going to a sailing camp on Orcas island off the coast of Washington state. I was a little concerned that the design I selected would have problems because of the water design, but I made sure to make the lines thick enough.
Luckily for me, the file cut perfectly the first time I tried it. I cut three pieces to account for any problems down the line. There was a significant amount of slag, but nothing the angle grinder couldn’t handle.
I figured out the best technique to remove the unwanted material is to start rotating at full speed and try to brush off the pieces by contacting it from the side and apply some pressure. This seemed to work better than grinding it down from the top because it would effectively remove big chunks of the targeted material. I was a little cautious not to overuse the angle grinder as I noticed there was one notch that went too deep in both pieces. Luckily, it was in the exact same location for both of them so they still had a uniform look. I tried to use the file for a little but found that using the angle grinder carefully with the strategy explained above was sufficient for making something I was happy with.
Next, I went to use the sand blaster which is a lot of fun. I noticed that I had to sand blast in the same location for quite a few seconds to get the material looking the color I wanted. Sand blasting took longer than expected because I wanted a uniform look as opposed to patchy sand blasted look.
Overall, I am really satisfied with the results! I do think that I will be using the water jet cutter for most projects moving forward to avoid the additional post processing steps to remove the slag.
COST BREAKDOWN
Material: 1/8 ” steel sheet 6″ x 24″ (more than enough material for 4 pieces) = $16
Labor: $14 / hour x 2 hours = 28$
Machine time: $15 / hour x 1 hour = $15
Total = $59 for two finished products
