Goal:

This project’s goal was to cut out two steel diamonds with designs of our choosing and implement three post processing techniques in order to obtain two identical pieces.

 Procedure: 

I first began by finding a design I wanted to cut into my diamonds (the templates of which were given). After browsing designs in thenounproject website, I ended up choosing a low-poly squirtle.

After downloading the files, I went into adobe illustrator to set up the orientation of the squirtles. Once the set up was finished, I downloaded the final file into a flashdrive and went into the machine shop to plasma cut the diamonds.

I cut out four pieces in response to the advice given, and went straight to the orbital grinder. The pieces had slag due to the plasma cutter and had to be taken care of. I also decided to file my pieces since small bits of metal were ruining the outline of the squirtle. Finally, after all my pieces were physically uniform, I chose the two best looking ones to post process even further.

I was then going to sand blast my pieces, but it turned out that the sand blaster stopped functioning. So I had to pivot and decided to orbital sand the pieces. As I was orbital sanding, I realized it was taking significantly long. Therefore, I made the decision to only sand one of the diamonds’ face.

Lastly, in an attempt to save my diamond, I spray painted the sanded face with filler primer and painted the un-sanded face black (intentional choice to cover the black stains from plasma cutting).

Results: 

Voila! Les résultats..

Cost:

Labor: 4hrs*$7.25 = $29

Material: Metal (~$15), Paints (~$12)

Overhead: ~$30

Total Cost: $86