HELLOOOOO!

I am back, and this time I was tasked to plasma cut and use metal post-processing techniques to make a diamond and cut some fun shapes out of it! And I decided that I wanted to do Woodstock, Snoopy’s friend.

Step 1) Go to Adobe Illustrator and make a .dxf file of the diamond and Woodstock outline where I want the plasma cutter to cut.

Step 2) I then took that file to the plasma cutter and cut it out. It did take an extra try to get my 2 identical diamonds since the first one stop cutting in the middle of the cut because the building air pressure decreased below the optimal pressure to run the plasma cutter…. But when it came back up, I successfully cut both diamonds!

Step 3) Since the plasma cutter is very rough, and created dross wherever it cut, I used the magnetic grinding block and the angle grinder to remove the dross and the sharp outside edges.

Step 4) Next I attempted to use the metal file to file down the inside edges of my Woodstock, however the metal file was too big and it was unsuccessful. So I went straight to the sand blaster and sand blasted off the top layer of the metal to make it a uniform surface that was ready to powder coat.

Step 5) Once it was nice and smooth and uniform, I took it outside to powder coat it yellow. Once done, I put it in the preheated oven for 20 minutes as per the instructions to let it bake and set. And after 20 minutes, it was done! I also wrote down my steps (including the failed metal file) and put it on the back.

And of course we keep our workspaces clean, and here is my final workspace

Cost Analysis:

• Tools:
  • Due to the nature of the plasma cutter, sand blaster, angle grinding tools, and powder coating tools, I will be omitting them
• Material:
  • Steel Sheet – $15.93
  • 1lb. Yellow Powder Coat – $24.15
• Labor
  • 3 hours of Labor at $10 – $30

So the total cost of my Woodstock is $70.08!