Etched Glass - Not Laser Made

You can also etch metal using the same idea- I made a friend this coat of arms flask . The stainless steel flask was masked with vinyl (cut with my silhouette) and then sand blaseted with an air eraset, just like doing glass.

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Very nice. I really like it.

Good idea! Thanks.

That looks really nice. I can’t believe you did that with vinyl, there are some tiny details in there. Wait – is the design in the center done with vinyl, or just the surrounding design?

If you cut and weeded that boar’s head I am impressed and I want to know what specific vinyl you used. With any of mine, that would be a nightmare to weed.

Now I get the pig head nane. From the coat of arms. :slight_smile:

Lots of talk about Silhouette machines in this thread - I love mine! I have made hundreds of designs with my machine…however my background is definitely not computers/coding/etc…so does anyone know if/how I can get my Silhouette files to go seamlessly over to the Glowforge? Will I need to export them to another program first? Thanks in advance - any input will be greatly appreciated! I’ve been stressing a little bit about this just because of the shear volume of files I want to work with…

Yes, you’ll need to export your Silhouette designs so they are in a format that can go directly to the Glowforge or be imported into another package that can be used to change them (scaling or other changes). There is a simple software upgrade that will allow you to export your Silhouette designs to a standard vector file exchange format.

In answer to your question about converting Silhouette Studio files…I’m not sure, but probably not.

The problem is that recent Silhouette Studio versions (even the Designer Edition) no longer have the ability to export DXF file formats, which is a format that the GlowForge would be able to read.

I’m going to bet that the GF will not be able to read .Studio files or .gsp files, and I don’t know of any other way to convert them. (They are a proprietary format.)

(There was one old version (1.9) of Studio Designer Edition that did export DXF file formats, but they did away with it and it is no longer available.)

If you saved or backed up a copy of the old version 1.9 SS software and install it on a separate computer (because of what they have done with the new software, the old version will be overwritten if you try to run both versions simultaneously) then you can open your files in that and save them as DXF format files on the other computer.

It’s a slim chance, I know. :disappointed_relieved:

(oh, and needless to say, you have to turn off automatic updates)

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Well, as long as the silhouette can still cut the file… the camera on the Glowforge is your conversion tool.

Yep! :relaxed:

What I have done with the silloute is take a screen capture of the design and then open it in Adobe or Inkscape. If zoom into the design so that it takes up most of the computer screen it works the best. Isn’t the greatest process but it works. I have only had to do this a few times though. Bought the plugin for adobe illustrator that sends it directly to the silloute so I don’t use thier program anymore.

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Great suggestion. I’ll have to check into the illustrator plugin.

I linked this site in the other Silhouette thread, but in case you missed it, this is how you can export sihouette and import into illustrator.

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I will have to try this. Seems like a good way to do it!! Thank you.

There is an application that directly convert Silhouette Studio files into svg in 1 second! http://ideas-r-us-software.uk/FileConverters/SilhouetteStudioConverter.aspx - you can get the svg file and use it with Inkscape or others.

This apps is free for 10 files a day by computer. It works by IP address, so if you have several laptops you can use you can multiply the conversion by day.

I do that for the moment to cut my Silhouette files on my Cricut Explore Air and it perfectly works!

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This is a find! Many thanks! :grinning:

Can the Silhouette software print? If so you could print to PDF and go from there, right?

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Another Flask made using Silhouette and Vinyl. I am still thinking the GF may cut tape ( rather than vinyl" on glass or stainless steel and then be able to sand blast - allowing finer lines than vinyl cutting. I have managed some very small lines w/vinyl, but often takes several attempts and careful placing on the glass or item (sometimes with a dental pick as too small for tweezers).

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Made 30 glasses for work (not the best pic - penny for size). The silhouette was able to cut that little R from the registered trademark (too small for twwezers when putting it on the glass). Fun part is sandblasting w/o the piece blowing off. Looking forward to using my GF for precison cuts ( bummer that I can’t use vinyl, but their are other alternative adhesives).


And some wedding goblets i sand blasted on stainless steel( western theme - no glass allowed in hall). Sorry for the poor pic.

<img src=“//cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/glowforge/original/2X/d/d7c15b82596d330f6d83c48113d5d856d288d114.JPG” width=“666” height=“500”

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Awesome work! Now you are making me want to get a sand blaster again. :grin:

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