For this assignment, I got to use the Water Jet cutter and apply post-processing techniques for the first time. The first step was to find an adequate shape to cut out, which meant it was best to avoid small geometric shapes and thin lines. I chose a butterfly design from the Noun Project but made modifications using Adobe Illustrator so that the butterfly “fill” wouldn’t be completely cut off and leave just the outline. The next step was to set up the Water Jet cutter. Here, a challenge I had was figuring out how to select the path such that all the butterfly lines would be cut. It took me a couple tries, but I eventually got the desired cut route.

 

I used an aluminum sheet of 0.014″ thickness for my diamonds. The resulting pieces were identical, and the cut of the butterflies gave them a nice, clean appearance. I noticed that there were some really sharp edges and decided that my next step was to use an edge file to smooth them out.

 

 

 

 

 

After achieving smooth edges on the diamonds, my next step was to use the sandblaster since I started to notice some dark rust spots. Initially, I was hesitant to do this step because I personally did not like the grainy appearance that the sandblaster leaves on the metal, but I figured that by powder coating or applying a clear coat the final surface would be even and smooth anyway. Additionally, the sandblaster helped me get rid of undesired scratch marks on the diamond surfaces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lastly, I applied a blue powder coat on both sides of the diamonds. This step was a bit tedious because as I tried to put the diamonds into the oven, I accidentally wiped off some powder with my gloves and had to reapply more. When I was designing the butterfly shape in Illustrator, I initially planned to use vinyl stickers to create wing details on the butterflies and use at least 2 different powder coat colors. However, this was more laborious than I had the time for so I decided to keep it simple.

 

In order to demonstrate the steps I took to create the final pieces, I used the label maker to print and stick the written steps onto my diamonds. Overall, I’m satisfied with my final product and I’m excited to apply what I learned as I work on the metal pieces for Sydney and I’s midterm project.

cost analysis for metal cutting and post-processing

Cost Type	Cost	Price	Source	Quantity	Total
Materials	Aluminum sheet	$0.08/in^2	HomeDepot	48 in^2	$3.82
	Powder coat	$9.67/color	Eastwood	1 color	$9.67
Labor	Water Jet operator	$15/hr	ZipRecruiter	0.5 hr	$7.50
	Sandblaster operator	$15.49/hr	ZipRecruiter	0.5 hr	$7.75
	Powder coater operator	$15.42/hr	ZipRecruiter	1 hr	$15.42
Overhead	Machine time	$31.83/hr	WardJet	0.5 hr	$15.92
	Quality Engineer	$34.32/hr	Salary.com	0.5 hr	$17.16
Design	Free online	$0	NounProject	–	$0
Misc.	Scrap metal	$0.08/in^2	HomeDepot	96 in^2	$7.65

The total for making these two diamonds comes out to about $84.89.