This is a map of the United States that came about because we wanted to utilize the plate marking accessory that comes as a $2,450 upgrade to any of our plasma cutting tables. It uses a carbide tip pen that is pneumatically controlled to etch the metal plate. You can increase or decrease both the feed rate and the frequency of the solenoid to get deeper or lighter penetration into the metal. We had to split the design into two separate tool paths: one of the states, and one of the perimeter cut out that included Alaska and Hawaii. We brought in the image below into the Torchmate CAD software through the scan and trace wizard. We used the node editing tool to duplicated the images into two designs and then we went about deleting the excess nodes to create the design that we were after. Creating the star array was somewhat easy once we figured out how to match the pattern that appears on the flag. We placed a female tool path on these stars. We also placed an online tool for the plate marker on the states, and then a male tool path for the perimeter cuts. Be careful not to make Hawaii too small as the plasma barely keeps all of the different islands together at its current size. When we designed the original that is in the video we nested the file to use as little material as possible. So we rotated Alaska. In the design file that I have attached I kept the design just like the original photo. We thought that the scrap material skeleton looked almost as cool and could be used for a different metal art piece. Simply grind off the lead ins with a cutting wheel on an angle grinder and no one will ever know! We chose some 3"x 3/8" bolts with matching nuts and washers for our hardware. We also used a one inch spacer to offset the design from the base that it would be bolted to. We tack welded on these bolts to the finished cut out before we sent it off to be painted. The painting element of the project was the most time consuming. You need three separate days for the paint to dry, one day for each color. Simply use the 36mm width of Scotch Blue™ Painter's Tape to make up the stripe pattern of the flag. The white behind the stars was achieved by using a white acrylic background. Trimming the acrylic to size is best explained in the video. Intermittently between layers of painting, we worked on the base. It was comprised of (12) 28" long pieces of 1" x 4" pine that we got from our shipping department. We used a MINWAX® stain called Special Walnut. We used 11 of the planks and staggered them for a more dynamic appeal. We then used wood glue to secure them together, and then we screwed in the twelfth to further secure it. The final step before we put the entire thing together was to stain it and let it dry. Let us know in the comment section below how much you think the finished piece would sell for!
Here are some American flag stuff I have been working on, I am going to replace the stars with new ones and clean up the drawings a little
If you’re using Torchmate CAD, select the entire drawing, break path (Ctrl-J), and then you can manually delete each state outline.