Beta day - four (Wood Inlay)

I have started a bunch of complex things that are giving me modeling/drawing trouble, so I decided to take a break and just do something quick and fun. Someone mentioned doodling, and although my work is mainly in 3D, I doodle all the time. I doodle on pretty much everything I own (it drives my wife nuts). So why not a laser doodle?

The Proofgrade material pack I received includes some very pretty ⅛” thick hardwood. I decided to make some tiles by doodling a line and then cutting it out of two different woods.

First I drew a quick line in fine point sharpie.

I took a picture with my phone and then ran it through Illustrator’s live trace (note doodles in paint marker on laptop :slight_smile: ).

Then I put a piece of Walnut and one of Padauk into the Glowforge, and cut two copies of my line.
After a quick photonic zap I ended up with…


I am blown away by how easy this was, and how nice the results were. The Walnut is slightly thicker than the Padauk and it really shows off the crisp black line. Not sure yet how I will afix all the little pieces. They took me a while to get all the paper peeled off and arranged, and I knocked them out more than once. Maybe I will try glueing them to a piece of laser cut plywood as a backer board.


More soon.

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That looks really cool! Love the doodle on the laptop too by the way. :wink:

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That is really sharp looking

what is the friction grab between the two pieces or is it free glide ?

question behind the question is I am wondering how much grab/press fit can be expected with solid wood for tab construction with curf on the waste side to avoid needing glue

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Holy cats, Josh, that’s gorgeous!

FYI, the variation in thickness is one of the things we’re working on in further Proofgrade iterations.

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I’m out of :heart:s for the day, but I’d :heart: to :heart: it!

Seriously, this is beautiful, and exactly the kind of playful work I’m looking forward to doing on my Forge.

As for getting the masking paper off your little pieces, maybe try sticking stickier tape to the mask–i.e., if the Proofgrade mask is as sticky as Blue Tape, stick masking tape to the Proofgrade mask and it will peel off the wood. If it’s as sticky as masking tape, try duct tape. (And let us know if it works?)

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Really great work, that would something that would be great for a small box top. Keep it up.

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Love that!!! How simple… but awesome!!

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Random doodle seriously looks like some incredible piece of artwork—I can’t WAIT for this thing to come! Keep being awesome and sharing!

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Absolutely gorgeous! I really like your doodling style.

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THIS is EXACTLY how I plan on using my GF!!! Either line art directly on the piece or minor touch-ups in Inkscape. These look AMAZING!

You could get some felt and glue the wood to that and use them as a coaster. :smiley:

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Looks like some kind of coast line. It is great to see what you are doing. Thank you for sharing it with us. I notice some little black dots in the last photo. Do you know what caused them?

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Very good example of precision of cut for inlays and such. Definitely some type of harbour lurking in your subconscious!

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This is more as an observation then a question as Josh is not allow to answer questions. I am assuming the image to engrave function is not enabled on his test unit.

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The sudden use of “Proofgrade” tm on the same day as shipment delay announcement feels all propaganda-ish. I’m sure I’ll be over it by tomorrow.

That aside, very nice looking work!

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Thats quality artwork right there. Beautiful!! Maybe a doodle your wife would appreciate. :slight_smile:
You are now dubbed the Laser Doodler!!

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This wasnt engraved…it needed to be vectorized to cut so different function all together

Right. But he started with a hand written drawing. And one of the selling points of the GF was the ability to take that and cut/engrave/raster etc.

Very nice! You are really cranking out some great work. Next best thing to having a Glowforge is seeing “one of us” using one. Looking forward to your next post!

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Truth, although a key difference was that he vectorized it on the computer so that it would be easy to resize across his wood; I’m not sure the GF supports that sort of feature for its autotrace.

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Man, this looks killer. Really nice work, brother.

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