Omg, that makes me go:
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During the day, I design and build intricate electromechanical systems for tech place on Rt 128 (in Massachusetts). At home, I have a fairly comprehensive fab shop that I use to do small jobs for local labs, friends, etc. Letās see:
South Bend lathe
Jig borer
TIG/MIG/Plasma
Sheet metal tools
Woodworking equipment
Iāve spent a fair amount of time lately designing and building a liquid-fuel rocket engine (just for fun; launch insurance for these is impossibly expensive). Itās been a great way to fill in gaps in my education like metallurgy, heat transfer, and fluid dynamics.
My immediate Glowforge plans involve making some front panels for control boxes, intricate brackets, and 4x-scale transparent rocket engine components to investigate fluid flow (via cut-and-try; too expensive to model).
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Born mid '50ās, my universe was analog.
At any rate, it would be quicker to show it than list it. This room normally looks like a grenade went off in it, but I had just cleaned it and was compelled to take pictures.
Not shown are my automotive tools that live in the garage with my custom '66 Mustang.
The steel table I use for welding and plasma cutting is where the 'Forge will live, right below the exhaust fan.
The corner to the right of the window is occupied by a cabinet housing a pneumatic centrifugal caster - the only one of its kind, designed, engineered and fabricated in that room.
Most creative work has been oriented around jewelry and sculpture, but that bench in the center of the room is the alter upon which many tools, appliances and obstinate devices either were repaired, or eviscerated for parts.
This last image is an example of what happens when unexpected inspiration strikes. My answer to the Klingon Batāleth. I bled three times making that thing.
Still a digital noob, with the exception of Autocad Inventor that I took a course on. Parametric drafting is so cool! Now trying to find my way around Gimp and Inkscapeā¦
I am excited for the range of materials that can be used in a laser, and looking forward to discovering more - and stinking up the neighborhood!
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Iām a completely inexperienced, new GlowForge owner! Iāve designed and built many things in my welding shop, but always by trial and error, never by CAD design. Iāll have a LOT to learn to get handy with my GlowForge.
I am an amatuer photographer and use 4 different programs for that. I do a lot of graphic designing for 2 rodeos held here on our ranch. We do the programs. Iām hoping the knowledge of those tools will cross over into this. From the videos Iāve watched on the forums, the tools are very similar.
Like you, I love doing tile (currently doing a master bath using the new realistic looking wood tile). Being a rancher, I have lots of opportunity to build miscellaneous things with my husband. Weāve been remodelling and adding on to our home for the last 25 years, doing most of the work ourselves. I also have chickens and their coop is pretty deluxe. 
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Luckily I come from a very creative family so I had lots of creative tools to play with growing up. And being born in the early 80ās I feel like I got the best of both worlds of digital and analog.
Software:
Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks (formally Macromedia product)
Final Cut Pro
Corel Painter
SketchBook Express
HTML, CSS, PHP, JAVA
All the other basic computer software programs, excel, word, numbers, pages.
Analog:
Most powertools - table saws, bandsaws, drill press, chop-saw, wormdrive, sanders, routers, dremel (the 2nd love of my life), etc.
Welding - But I really really really suck at it.
Leather tools
Pyrography
Resin Castings
Polymer Clays
SFX Makeup
We had a 3D printer a CubeX Pro - A LEMON of a product and a SCAM of company. A no refund policy, they replaced one non-working printer with another non-working printer. It was a $4000 paperweight. Finally, after contacting a lawyer and the BBB they refunded our money and took back their hunk of junk.
thats way cooler sounding than āwoodburningāā¦
āyeah, iām a pyrographerā 
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Of course! When youāre a Pyrographer you can burn more then just wood! I use it on leather, bone, and ostrich eggs as well. 
Just make sure youāve got great ventilation.
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Hey! I am a graphic designer from Ontario Canada. I run a small design studio there. A good chunk of our business is vehicle graphics and signs so we run a large format Roland printer/plotter. We basically live in Illustrator and Photoshop every day so I was very excited to see that the GF with output from these programs. I have to set-up cutlines and files all the time so I am familiar with the process that will be involved with the GF.
I am not a carpenter or handy man by any means but I have lots of tools and I am not scared to try thing out. I love to build, craft, models, props, and items for cosplay and other nerdy things. I am excited to see what mixing all of this with the GF will create!
Hey !
I am a computer engineering student and currently doing an aerospace master at Montreal.
Iāve bought a Glowforge in order to start a new company and sell so many handmade objects ! This idea came to me when i worked in a Fablab with a Trotec Speedy 400. The problem with trotec is their software used to print. Itās totally private and sometimes doesnāt print like it should be. Plus, you must use Illustrator before using this soft, which is really annoying.
But you still can do so many beautiful things !
I am very looking forward to get my glowforge !
I have a decently stocked garage of woodworking tools:
Table Saw
Joiner
Miter Saw
Scroll Saw
Circular Saw
Jig Saw
Router
lathe
hammer drill
drill
chisels
sculpting tools
Pressure Molding and Casting
Air tools
Air Compressor
TONS of hand tools
Air brush
Electrical tools (for fun with LEDs and arduinos, new to the latter)
Like to create and to mix using many different tools. Canāt wait for the Glow Forge to help minimize some of my hand work!
Retired from the 9-to-5 pretty young, and decided I needed to do something to keep the olā brain in shape.
Got involved with designing for, (and developing new techniques and testing design software for), digital vinyl and craft cutters, and training new users as modifications came out. (Mainly Wishblade, CraftRobo, Silhouette, & Gazelle cutters.) Love it now, but in the beginning, the software design capabilities were almost nonexistent, and a lot of work-arounds and conversions had to be employed.
In addition to cutting paper, vinyl and cardboard, we were eventually able to make those little cutters do everything from cutting through clay, thin fabrics, certain plastics, sheet magnet, foils and thin balsa wood to creating origamic architecture and specialized invitations that combine separate printing and cutting functions using registration marks for alignment, engraving, etching and drawing. (We actually use them for much more than cutting paper and vinyl.)
Last year I made the leap into the 3D printing world. Got a MakerGear M2 and spent a couple of months learning to design in 3 dimensions, as opposed to two. Love it, love it, love it! (Phenomenal machine! Bumped it up to the dual extruder setup after a few months and now love it even more!)
No laser cutting experience yet - this will be my step-off. (Canāt wait to try some new materials.)
So, quick rundown of the design software Iām currently familiar with:
Cutter/Printer Specific Software:
Wishblade
Robomaster
Xyron Create and Cut
Silhouette Studio
Gazelle Funtime
ScrapSavvy
WinPC Sign
Klic-N-Kut Studio
Simplify3D
Slic3r
General Design Software:
Adobe Illustrator (preferred)
Adobe Photoshop (preferred)
Inkscape
CorelDraw (under review)
Rhinoceros (preferred)
Solidworks SE (under review)
And a few other open source options that got tried out as I came across them. (Canāt list 'em all, but can use them for simple design.)
As far as the non-digital stuff goes, if itās crafting related, Iāve probably tried it. (Got a set of tools that would make Home Depot blush. 
)
Thatās about itā¦just wanted to introduce myself to the crew.
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For the ball I think Iād make a series of flat segments, then grind it down aggressively into a ball shape (make each wider ālayerā be equal in thickness to the smaller one above or below it), followed by progressively sanding it (followed by a clearcoat for the shine). Never made one, but that would be the first thing Iād try.
I got into 3D printing about a year ago, with a cheapish DaVinci printer. From there I got into modifying it slightly, then more extensively, and before you knew it I was rewiring it and replacing the whole X/Y carriage. From there I printed out parts and made my own CNC. I learned a lot from trial and error - and yes, I did cut through my desk a little when my all thread (Iāve since switched to a lead screw) had some binding that was preventing the stepper from going back up once it went down to a certain depth. (and of course when it wanted to go back down it ended up just progressively going lower and lower until it hit the bed which was luckily wood). Iāve got it working pretty good right now though, and have been contemplating putting a 3D printer head on it in place of the router, getting a big long mirror, some blue tape, and trying some big 20 inch+ 3D prints. The X/Y is up to 40 inches wide, but I donāt think even PLA and blue tape would stick on a print 40 inches wide.
Ken, I just did a keyword search on the GlowForge forums, looking for the term, āetchā and your profile or comment from November came up underneath a comment with āetchā in itā¦
Anyway, seeing as you already have a laser cutter and experience with machining and metalsmithing, how do you think I can make this? (See photo of a dog tag for sale on etsy but someone who is not me, but I love her work). I have taken some classes about basic metal working, basic metalsmithing, used a waterjet and a Tormach millā¦ I canāt figure out how to best get the detail of this engraving into brass (or other metal).
Please help! I love the way this looks. HUGE thank you in advance for your time.
Michelle Hamilton
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I know fiber lasers are pretty great at that stuff, but they are also pretty great at making you have to take out a mortgage to pay for them:
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Beautifulā¦ I never heard of a fiber laserā¦ Need to check that outā¦ Donāt want a mortgage, thatās for sureā¦
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Never tried it with mine, but I have seen plasma āgougingā that resulted in 1/4 even depth leaving detailed raised lettering.
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I could list so many different pieces of equipment and elaborate on everything, but I want to take a look into 3D printing - particularly the differences between filament and SLA based printers. Now, Iām very new to this, relatively speakingā¦although I would consider myself a pseudo expert on the Form2 SLA printer.
So I get the basics in terms of trade offs and these arenāt all-inclusive observationsā¦using filaments like traditional extrusion printer can be lower in quality, etcā¦but the options for materials are so vast, the cleanup is basically non-existent (just snap part off platform) and the speed can be great (at lower quality).
SLA, on the other hand, from my research seems to be much higher resolution and detail (which Iāve seen first hand with the Form2), but much less diverse in terms of materials and although this is improving constantly and Iāve seen fast ones coming out - the speed can be pretty unappealing. The worst aspect of SLA though has to be the cleanup, period. If youāre not familiar, SLA uses basically a tank of photo-sensitive resin that is exposed to light through either a laser or some projection system, which cures or hardens the part layer by layer. In most cases, these are suspended from the platform and submerged into the resin so the part seems to build āupside downā, as opposed to other 3D printers, which build form the ground up. The inherent problem with SLA is that the part is constantly being dunked into resin and all the excess uncured resin needs to be cleaned off afterwards. If you have fresh IPA Alcohol, it can be nice and easy and clean, but once it muddys up from other resin, your parts start coming out tacky and itās hard to fully remove that. Also, if there is any failure - youāre certainly got a huge mess on your handsā¦weāre talking sifting out little bits of cured resin from a tank that basically has a bunch of thick maple syrup in itā¦not too fun. But Iāve devised ways of making all this easier/ more effective by using home-made resin and alcohol filter systems and particularly really paying attention to how the part is designed and how it will build so as to avoid any failures.
Anyways, that was basically a mental stream about my thoughts on thatā¦thinking I want to get a good old filament based printer for easier and cleaner parts when I donāt need the resolutions and detail I can get on the Form2ā¦by the way, donāt get me wrongā¦that is an incredible machine and the latest improvements are hugeā¦just something to considerā¦
Iāve been using a pretty decent FDM printer (Zortrax) for the past year and have found that for any complex part with organic form and support.that removal and clean up can be a lot more complex than just āsnapping it offā. Some parts are that simple, but others, like the block for a scale Toyota truck engine can require quite a bit more futzing around and quite a lot of time to print. That engine, for example, took hours of finishing work and more than a week of time to print.
Iād assumed before now, that SLA was the simpler process to use so thanks for the comments on issues related to it.
Mike, good point - I completely over-simplified, for sure. And itās also true with SLA - inherently, large complex parts are tough to remove, take a long time to print and tough to cleanā¦also support removal and placement can be tricky too. On the other hand, small simple parts like tube connectors or something without too many details are the opposite -print easy and quick, sometimes wihout supports and clean up fairly easily too.
Something else to consider about supports- itās interesting that for filament printers (btw, is there a better term like SLA? - I know PLA and ABS are types of materials, but for that type of extrusion printer in general?)ā¦you have to think about supports in terms of overhangs/ angle of incline, wieght, etcā¦which is essentially the same for SLA, but if it works like mine where the part is entirely suspended from the platform, you also have to think about the weight of the whole part and having solid enough supports, without having more than you need.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that with SLA you have to think about drainage. In other words, if you print, say a bowl upside down, when it prints that last layer that seals the structure of the bowl, it will trap all of the resin that is stuck in there. This may not be an issue for certain parts - you just pop them off and it drains out, but you might not want cavities with uncured resin trapped - so you have to think about orientation and even drainage holes if needed.
Thanks for you reply though!
FDM (fused deposition modeling)
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