In this assignment, I designed, plasma cut, and post processed a diamond using 3 techniques. It is my first time cutting a metal, which is a skill I really curious and want to learn before. I also learned a really nice way to color a metal: powder coating. The color is so great and stable on a metal!
I designed a diamond first in the illustrator. It is basically two deltas combined together upside down. The lightning makes it really cool!
Then, I went to plasma cut it. Plasma cutting is a lot easier than I thought after I learned from all the nice TAs. I cut it with dimension of 5 inch
However, plasma cut is worse than I thought. It is terrible with rough edges.
Therefore, I decided to use an angle grinder.
It looks much nicer after the angle grinder.
However, the angle grinder lead to inconsistent color. Also, the smoothness of the diamond surface is not consistent and confortable, so I decided to sand blast it. And here is the diamond after sand blasting.
Here is a comparasion between processed and not processed piece.
Then I did exactly same thing to the other metal piece. After that, I use power coating to all color to it. However, since there are lots of powder during the time I powder coating it, I did not bring my phone. So here is the picture of the diamond after I took out from the oven.
Here is the proof that I clean up.
In all, I used 3 techniques of post processing: angle grinding, sand blast, and powder coating.
Estimated cost:
Raw materials:
1. $7 for metal: $34 per square foot for metal sheet, the area of diamond is 30 square inches
2. $4 powder coating: $15 for 35oz powder, assume using 10 oz
3. $3 sandblasting: $73 for 50lbs, assume using 2 lbs.
Labor:
1. $60, $10 for being a TA in Rice University
Machine time:
3$ : $90 a month to work in a lab for all kinds of machinery: TXRX Labs
Total cost: $77
