For this assignment, I decided to cut the symbol mark of one of my top listened-to bands into a diamond-shaped piece of metal. I began by creating the file on Adobe Illustrator, which was not too difficult given the template. Next, I used the plasma cutter to cut out my two pieces during the TA session. We referenced a premade line speed test for steel to determine the line speed at which to cut at, and we decided to use a speed of 90 IPM in hopes of minimizing dross.

Somehow, the resulting pieces from the plasma cut had quite a bit of dross compared to what the line speed test had shown, so onto post-processing I went.

First, I used the angle grinder to get rid of the dross. The angle grinder was slightly intimidating due to all the sparks, but I was able to smooth out my metal pretty nicely.

Cleaned workspace after angle grinding.

Next, I wanted to file the inside of the symbol, as some of the edges were a bit jagged. Unfortunately, the space inside the symbol was kind of narrow, and the files in the OEDK were too large to effectively file down the corners of the triangle where most of the jaggedness was. I tried my best, but I definitely wasn’t able to get the edges perfect; some of the imperfections from plasma cutting are still noticeable.

I couldn’t spend the rest of my life filing away, so I moved on to sandblasting my pieces. While the sandblaster is intuitive to use, I was developing severe hand cramps from how long it took to sandblast the surface evenly. After far too much time, I had removed most of the surface oxidation as evenly as possible, leaving me with two shiny but rough pieces.

Finally, I needed to powder coat my pieces to produce a smooth finish. I originally wanted to do an ombre pink and blue finish because those are the colors associated with the band, but we didn’t have a pink powder coat. Instead, I went with a silver coat, as that also aligned with a lot of the band’s recent branding. When I started powder coating, the pressure of the air compressor was somehow at 60 psi, which resulted in huge clouds of powder coat coming out. However, there was no way to make the pressure go down without just spraying more, so I just hoped that the coating would be relatively even despite the scuffed application.

Cleaned (as best as possible) workspace after powder coating.

After putting my powder-coated pieces in the oven to cure for 30 minutes, I had my final product!

While the pieces look relatively clean from the front, the side where all the dross originally was has a lot of scratches and miscellaneous imperfections, and the jagged edges of the symbol are somewhat noticeable. There is also a strange bump on the front side, and I’m not really sure what caused it. If I were to do this again, I would definitely need to use a smaller file that could get into the corners of the symbol. I think the surface imperfections were actually brought out by the juxtaposition of a shiny silver coat, as I didn’t see them after sandblasting, but they could probably be improved upon by sandblasting for longer and perhaps a more even application of powder coat.

Cost Breakdown:

Materials:

• 2 x 5″ x 3″ area of metal from 1 sheet of steel: $0.5
• ~ 1/3 oz silver powder coat: $1.17

Labor:

• ~2.5 hours at a rate of $12.17 (lowest end of sheet metal worker in the region): $30.43

Equipment:

• Makerspace access for $50/month = $1.66 for 1 day

Total Cost: $32.76