During the introduction of the plasma cutting project, I decided I wanted to make the cut unique to me and one of my passions. I made a diamond with the Nike swoosh inside of it. The cutting phase of. the diamond was riddled with difficulties and problems one after the other. After modifying my piece in Adobe Illustrator I was met with a long queue to use the Plasma Cutter. However, the queue moved slowly because everyone was working on fixing the imperfections of their dxf file and then coming back and trying again. The problems quickly cleared up though once Hayden arrived and went through my file and I removed the white background around the Nike SVG file I imported. I removed the fill and grouped both the diamond and Nike SVG together. Finally, I added a stroke of 0.072 pt to the lines of the diamond and swoosh.

Once the issues with my file were resolved I uploaded my file to the plasma cutter computer went through the steps and cut two copies using the machine. After cutting two copies of my diamond, I used the angle grinder to remove the slack buildup on the edges of my diamond.

Angle Grinding

Once I was done angle grinding I was able to remove most of the slack before taking it to the sand blaster to get rid of the other imperfections.

Piece after angle grinding

After I finished angle grinding both pieces, I went to the sandblaster and blasted them an even distance away in a back-and-forth horizontal pattern holding the piece in my left hand and blasting with my right to receive a nice glossy finish.

Piece after sandblasting

For my last step in post-processing, I decided to finish it with a lime green spray paint finish since I was wearing green sneakers the day of making the diamond. I went outside and spray-painted both pieces, ensuring the temperature and humidity conditions were satisfactory. After spray-painting one side of both pieces, I let them rest for a couple of minutes and then repainted with another light coat. Finally, after letting them dry for 20 minutes I flipped it over and repeated the same process. Once both sides were done I brought everything inside, so it could dry in a more controlled environment.

Pieces after spray painting and drying

For the cost report analysis the metal was provided to me for free, so I will not be including that in the report. I spent approximately 6 hours on the piece. I would quote myself at $20/hr. Overall, to create both of these pieces it would cost $120.