Firefighter Award: 12 ga Hot Rolled Mild Steel

Custom hot rolled mild steel firefighter award made by CNCROi.com can be endlessly customized from material through design specs for the ultimate personalization.

This firefighter award was made using 12 ga, 3 mm or 1/8″ thick steel which our plasma cutter sliced through like hot butter being cut with a molten knife.

Mild steel is a wonderful material for a wide variety of custom signage and award use, the reason is simple, it’s incredible strong and durable yet a very cost effective material that paints incredibly well.

Of course, with CNCROi.com, you are not limited to metal when it comes to your firefighter award.

For this specific firefighter award, it was roughly 23 inches in diameter or 580 mm, but we can go a lot smaller at CNCROi.com or bigger.

When I write and speak about the design being whatever you want, I mean it – this was custom designed for this specific project but any aspect of it can be customized however you like and yes, it doesn’t HAVE to be firefighting related.

The sparks and smoke you see in these photos are the plasma cutting instantly vaporizing the mild steel, transforming solid to gas almost instantly is quite a sight to behold and be next to.

There are endless material options when it comes to custom award production at CNCROi.com.

CNCROi.com has extensive experience in custom fabrication, in fact, that’s what we do day in and out, there is very little that we do that’s standard at our shop.

A firefighter award can be made out of wood, plastic or any other material at CNCROi.com but I believe metal is really the best material for the job, it has a wonderful weight to it and when hung on a wall, looks absolutely fantastic!

Three dimensional awards for us are no different and no more difficult than the flat stuff, you want it, we make it, with full 3D visualization tools to boot – CNCKing.com is a company I ran teaching myself how to design for the machines I’m lucky enough to own now.

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When it comes to plasma cutting this firefighter award, it was pretty straight forward 2D design, but if you wanted something with offsets, or a 3D model made out of steel (or any other material), CNCROi.com can design that for you just as easily and ship it right to your door.

The computer you see in the picture below is what is controlling our CNC plasma cutter, and yes, there are sparks and dross that fly all the way back there during the cutting process.

There are a few reasons why I decided to make this firefighter award using hot rolled mild steel, the first is that unlike aluminium, it has a nice weight to it and unlike titanium, it’s a really affordable material.

If you are looking for a unique material or design to be made into real life, CNCROi.com has done a ton of that over the years.

The second, unlike wood, this firefighter award is as happy indoors as out, unlike wood or plastic, especially considering there are 4 distinct seasons where this sign is headed to.

Lastly, CNCROi.com has standardized this material to a pretty good extent as we process so much of it, so we know what design work, what tolerances are possible and know how to produce the absolute best results possible using our CNC plasma cutter.

Nothing beats experience when it comes to custom fabrication, design through actual build of the project, and CNCROi.com has over two decades of it.

With endless possibilities, it’s important for us to know ahead of time what our spend is, budgets live or die based on materials and design possibilities so knowing what we have to play with allows us to make the best possible outcome and inform you as to your design options.

Like our laser and other equipment at CNCROi.com, the reason why the plasma isn’t cutting through our table and the floor is due to focus, the intensity of the plasma is highest right at the nozzle and it dissipates quite quickly thereafter.

It’s hard to see in these photos, but CNCROi.com also has automatic height control on our plasma cutter, meaning there is any deviation in height of the cutting head to the material even if the material isn’t perfectly flat, this produces the best and most accurate cuts possible.

When CNCROi.com buys equipment, it’s the best money can buy for that segment, and we add all the bells and whistles as you never know when a customer will have a challenge that we must meet in order to get the job done.

Mixing and matching materials for that ultimate award is a lot fun, we strive to make UNIQUE items for our customers.

Plasma cutting metal is wonderful fun at the shop, the absolute power that our Powermax 85 unleashes on the metal is just astounding and the effortless movement our plasma table would rival any professional dancer weighting over a ton.

The results from the plasma cutting are amazing, you can see how well the hot rolled mile steel firefighter award was cut, everything is nice and sharp, of course, there is still scrap material left on the table that didn’t fall through.

But once the scrap is taken off, it’s just held there by the table slats, you can start to see this firefighter award come to life.

We make custom prototypes and movie props as well for personal use.

To remove whatever little dross there is on this sign, CNCROi.com whips out the angle grinder and quickly removes it from both the front and the back, this also cleans the surface for the next step, enamel painting.

Enamel paint is the poor mans powder coating, it does a really good job and the nice thing is that it also seals and protects the surface of the mild steel from rusting, unlike stainless steel, mild steel will rust.

After a few coats and touch-ups, this firefighter award is complete and looking amazing!

Looking for a custom award? Any size, shape or material, contact CNCROi.com right now!