I was super excited to start the water jet cutting project as I haven’t had any experience with the machine yet, and was wondering how different it was compared to the laser-cutter.

After some contemplating, I decided to cut out Portugal, because my family hasn’t been able to visit the rest of our family in Portugal for a long time. My mom has been a little homesick, so I’m hoping that this would be able to cheer her up!

Making the design!

I found the original pattern on Noun project, and imported it into Adobe Illustrator! This is where I made my first mistake. The file that was going to be used was filled shapes rather than outlines.

I only realized this when I pressed the path button and saw Portugal disappear. I quickly converted my file to have an outline with no fill, and imported the document again to cut. I then chose steel to cut, as it was one of the few sheets of material available that had enough space to make 3 diamonds.

Then came problem #2. For some reason, the computer stopped communicating with the machine halfway through the cut, so the cut abruptly ended. The lab tech I worked with was sure to let me know he’s never seen this issue before, and that we were in uncharted territory. We checked the cables, unplugged and replugged in Fabman, and reloaded the MAKE program but still had no luck.

Ultimately, after a bit of struggling, and working with one of the TAs instead (as the lab tech’s shift ended :< ) we figured out that restarting the computer seemed to fix this issue. We also found that as long as you’re signed in as the same user you were signed in as before, the same configuration gets saved, so there was no need to make a new cut file!

So, I was able to continue my cut, and get three copies of the cut diamond using the same material instead of just two, as if this cut failed, I would have not been able to get three copies. Having three copies is important as it will later allow me to choose the best looking two rather than having to present the only two copies I have (which might be ugly D: ).

SAND BLASTING TIME!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After water jet cutting my three diamonds, I then used the sand blaster to make the surfaces of my pieces more uniform, and remove the watermarks on the material that didn’t budge even when I rinsed them with the hose.

It was super fun using the sand blaster, and as I used it more, I became better at creating an even and smooth surface. As a result, I had to sand blast my first two pieces once again to make sure they looked as good as the last sand blasted diamond.

VINYL cutting!

I was inspired by the Texas post where the student decided to color their cut diamonds using the Texas flag colors, and decided I wanted to do the same with Portugal flag’s colors. I ended up using the vinyl cutter to create a small border around Portugal that would be colored yellow to mimic the yellow circle of the flag. My first attempt went miserably.

It was also at this point when I came to the realization that having a sticker on top of the unbaked powder coat would result in the coat coming off. So I made the executive decision to instead add the Cross of Christ instead (a national emblem of Portugal :D) and peel it off later after I finished powder coating!

This ended up being more difficult than anticipated. While I was able to line up the stickers easily, removing the unwanted part of the sticker was difficult.

I had to use an X-Acto blade to peel off the inner cross. While I was able to get the inner cross eventually, I think next time I will go for a simple sticker design, so I wouldn’t have needed to spend so much time on carefully not ripping the sticker.

POWDER COATING b)

I went outside to powder coat, and it went very smoothly! Set up and clean up took significantly longer than coating the material itself.

I then placed the pieces in the oven. This was when I realized my mistake…I put too much coating on my piece and was unable to peel off the vinyl sticker. 🙁

Since I had three pieces, I used one of the least uniform looking pieces as a test piece to see how I could get the vinyl sticker out. After a bit of tinkering, I found that using an X-Acto blade was able to get the sticker out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, it also scratched and peeled off some of the powder coating. While I found the trapped sticker versions to be more pretty than the removed sticker version, it was at this moment that I realized I had only done two post-processing methods (Sandblasting and powder-coating) when we are required to do three. So, I removed as much of the vinyl sticker as I could following this realization.

I ended up scratching both the surface of the powder coat, and the sandblasted part of the metal. I tried to remedy this by using sanding as my third post-processing method, and blending out the scratches with a high-grade sandpaper. Unfortunately, this barely had an impact on smoothing the surface. However, it was helpful in removing some more of the vinyl sticker!

Next time, I will be sure to use less powder to coat my pieces, so I don’t end up with a trapped vinyl sticker. I also learned that it’s great to make more than you need when possible, as I was to choose the two attractive diamonds out of the three. When I cut metal again, I will also be sure to check for any sharp edges to sand, as there is a sharp point inside the diamond that I kept hurting myself on, but couldn’t sand down as I only noticed after I applied the powder coat.

cost estimate:

• Materials:
  • Stainless Steel Sheet (Metal Depot, $39.60 for 1′ x 2′) Used 1′ x 1′ : $19.80
  • Powder-Coat (Gloss Red, The Powder Coat Store): $14.00
  • Blue Adhesive Vinyl (Amazon, $7.99 for 12′ x 13′) Used 2″ x 6″ : ~$0.01
• Labor:
  • Waterjet Cutter Operator at $15 an hour: $22.00
  • Sandblasting Operator at $15.50 an hour: $7.75
  • Vinyl Cutter Operator at $14.00 an hour: $14.00
  • Powdercoating Operator:$15.00 an hour: $7.50
• TOTAL: = $85.06