Hello everyone, I’m back with another prototyping project. This time, I worked on my skills on various different machines in order to create diamonds. When deciding which designs to use for my diamonds, I chose utensils and an apple because I am always hungry and down to eat. I also love eating apples, especially when they are crisp and cold.
First, I had to waterjet the metal. I used the noun project in order to get my two images and then set them into the Waterjet software. Since my images were pretty simple and only required one “hole” inside of the diamond, it was a fairly simple process. Thanks to my growing familiarity with the software since the beginning of the class, the task of laying out everything in Illustrator was fairly easy. I began by downloading the provided diamond template, centering my images of an apple and utensils, and then using the “image trace” tool to create an accurate trace. Then, I made adjustments to the settings to ensure precise cutting of the design.
Next, it was time to use the water jet cutter to shape my aluminum designs. Even though I’d never used it before and was worried about missing steps, the instruction sheet in the wet lab was a big help in guiding me through the setup.
Surprisingly, everything went really well. The only small issue I had was starting with the water level a bit too high, causing the machine to stop briefly due to pressure problems. To address this issue, I consistently checked and maintained the water level of the cutter to ensure its precision during the cutting process. Additionally, by ensuring proper clearing of the plastic around the drain, the water level was better controlled.
Next, I looked to file my metal diamonds. This was to ensure that the edges of the diamonds were smooth and that there were no odd bumps or uneven areas. I always enjoy doing post-processing tasks as I love seeing rougher textures and edges smoothen out, so this was a satisfying process for me.
Afterward, I moved on to the sandblasting stage for these diamond pieces. Sandblasting not only elevated the overall appearance of the diamonds but also gave them a refined, satin-like finish to their surfaces. This process really started to elevate my diamonds from just a piece of metal to more of a finished piece, enhancing their visual appeal significantly.
Lastly, I spray-painted my diamonds. On a piece of cardboard, I used red and blue spray paint for my apples and utensils respectively. I think the learnings from spray painting that we had in the past weeks really helped me understand the right amount of time I should shake the can and the appropriate distance I should keep between my spray paint can and the diamonds. I believe that this improvement in technique helped give the diamonds an overall nice coat of paint.
| Material | Cost | Source | Quantity | Total |
| Blue Spray Paint | $6.50/can | Link | 0.5 cans | $3.25 |
| Red Spray Paint | $6.50/can | Link | 0.5 cans | $3.25 |
| Aluminum | $12.50/sheet | Link | 1/2 sheet | $6.25 |
| Waterjet Operator | $18/hour | Link | 0.5 hour | $9.00 |
| Sandblaster Operator | $15.50/hour | Link | 0.5 hour | $7.75 |
| Waterjet Machine | $30/hour | Link | 0.5 hour | $15.00 |
| Engineering Designer | $39/hour | Link | 2 hours | $78.00 |
| Total | $122.50 |
