Starting off with the design for my metal cut, I wanted my metal piece to look clean and minimalistic, so I decided to go with a simple bunny cut out. After creating the design in Adobe Illustrator, I head over to the plasma cutter to begin the process of cutting. I encountered some difficulty when creating the tool path for the cut – for some reason, the path created from my design seemed to have repeated cuts instead of one cut for the whole design. Once I tried a dry cut to see the path and double checked the steps I took to prepare the cut, I realized that there was a problem with the AI file for my design. There were two extra shapes overlapping in the design, which was causing the tool path to repeat itself. After fixing this issue, the path was fixed, and I began cutting two metal pieces.
The pieces that came out of the plasma cutter had a lot of dross and orange residue on it. Next, I used the angle grinder with Tori, and we grinded the excess material off our metal pieces.
After angle grinding, we took our pieces downstairs for some metal filing and sanding. I used a couple different grits of sandpaper to sand the surfaces of the pieces by hand, and then took them outside for spray painting.
For the first spray painting process, I think I turned my pieces over before they were completely dried, which resulted in the back side sticking to the paper towel. The paint I used needed around 2-4 hours to dry, and I think I only waited about 2 hours. Starting over again, I then sanded the pieces down once more. This time, I decided to try the orbital sander, which sped up the process of removing the dried paint and making the surface smoother. Once I finished sanding, I repeated the process of spray painting.
When I came back a couple days later, the paint on one of my metal pieces was ruined for some reason, although I had left it on the drying rack. My other piece, which I left on the table, was fine, so it may have been an accident… I had no choice but to repeat the process all over again, sanding off all the paint from the ruined piece, spray painting, and waiting for each side to dry again.
Finally, after undergoing the process of sanding and spray painting three times, my pieces were finished.
Reflection
Overall, I enjoyed learning the process of using the plasma cutter, angle grinding, filing, sanding, and spray painting the metal pieces. At the time, I used the orbital sander to sand the pieces since the sand blaster was down, but I hope to be able to try using the sand blaster in the future. I also learned through this experience that I should have cut a few more back-up pieces to post process as well, instead of only cutting two. And I will also make sure to place my pieces in safer places instead of the drying rack where it might be touched by other people or objects on accident.
Cost Analysis:
Raw materials:
Labor, machine, overhead:
- plasma cutter: ~ 1.5 hr ($20/hr) = $30.00
- labor: ~ 6 hr ($7.25/hr) = $43.50
Total:
$94.96
