The waterjet cutter seemed kind of scary. The week before working on the cutter, I saw a video of someone sticking their finger into a waterjet cutter. That wasn’t pretty. However, the process was quite simple, simpler than the laser cutter.
I had selected the design of a flame. Initially, I had hoped to use the design for the firebenders in Avatar: the Last Airbender but while designing the illustrator file, I realized the center pattern would be lost due to a closed path design (the center would have been cut out). That was an interesting consideration compared to the engraving process for laser cutting, the necessity for patterns to retain a physical connection to the material, and avoiding closed paths. In the end, I opted for a flame design on the noun project instead.
Finalized diamond design in Adobe Illustrator.
The fire symbol from Avatar was unfit due to a closed-path design.
With the design complete, the DXF file is loaded into the waterjet cutter computer, autopathed, dry-ran, and for the first time, the process went perfectly on the first try. Of course, nothing could be perfect and the second cut-out had an issue with either insufficient garter or too much water which disturbed the cut. After another attempt with more care for the conditions, the 2nd piece came out perfect too. It was such a surprise that the process went smoothly, the actual use time for the machine was probably 2 minutes for each attempt and an additional 3 minutes for the set-up and test runs.
Insufficient garter or too higher of a water level led to this failed cut.
Loading the design and running the dry runs were quite simple from following the instructions.
The waterjet cut pieces did not have any major defects so it went straight to sandblasting.
The cut-outs were so smooth that they required no filing before sandblasting which turned out really well. The purpose of sandblasting was dual to remove any visual defects from the waterjet cutting and to prepare the surface for better adhesion of paints.
Sandblasting removed any signs of waterjet cutting like magic.
The sandblasted pieces were left with a uniformly rough surface almost like sandpaper that was better for paint adhesion.
The ombre pattern took a few tries to get a good balance but turned out really nice.
Since selecting a flame design, I had the idea to try to get an ombre effect on the pattern similar to how real fire looks. I had never done anything beyond uniform painting before, but I wanted to stray off the beaten path a bit and try something novel so I went after it after watching a few YouTube tutorials. Though there was no yellow spray paint for my desired red-yellow ombre pattern, I opted for a red-blue combination instead which I think also seemed quite cool.
In total, the process took me 3 hours with an additional 2 hours for design search and modification as well as general caution while preparing to operate the waterjet cutter and spray paint. Actual usage of the waterjet cutter probably only totaled to 1 hour. Sandblasting took roughly 15 minutes of double-checking. Spray painting took the longest by far just simply waiting for the paint to dry, roughly 1.75 hours. The table below serves as a sample cost breakdown model.
