Agreed–I’m all for having the photos be part of the database.
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One of the reasons we felt we had to get into the materials business is because the liability for us speculating about what a given vendor was selling was just too high. We had too many experiences of a retailer selling X one day and identical-looking (but not lasering) Y the next. Or getting material from two locations that both said they were the same thing (3M adhesive, for which an MSDS was readily available) only to have them arrive and it was clear that one or both was lying, because they were visibly different from each other.
TLDR is that we’re going to spend our time making sure the materials we sell are awesome, safe, reliable, and work perfectly, and we won’t be in the business of characterizing others’ materials.
Then sometimes we’ll forget and engrave titanium sporks. More of a guideline than a rule, I’ll grant you. 
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To what degree will GF enable owners to characterize their own leather? Can we run test cuts/engraves, experimentally identify optimum power, speed, etc., then apply those customized settings to our own material?
Yes. 100%. You will be able to make your own custom settings.
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@spike, thanks for the quick response! Where can I learn more details about how that custom setting process works?
I don’t believe a lot of details are out there about the saving and assigning of custom settings (as in a how to do it, what the UI looks like, user manual entry, etc.).
Dan references it in a few posts: Custom settings for bacon, etc.
We have zero insight into how the S/W is set up. The community has been told that we can save our on presets but that is about it. Still waiting for someone to get their hands on the S/W or interfaces. This following is about as close to an official answer as we have: [quote=“dan, post:4, topic:710, full:true”]
There probably won’t be any presets, because the variation between e.g. two similar looking sheets of plywood can be infinite. Like, one sheet will be really quick, and the other impossible, and many values in between.
You will be able to create your own presets, and we’ll have performance characteristics for materials we sell.
[/quote]
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Just as @gdmccormack and @rpegg said.
Right now, only in-house and testers has access to this.
The testers are under NDA so can not openly talk about it.
Maybe this might change down the road and info will start filtering to the members.
Spike. You may be aware of folks with Beta machines. There is no way for me to know. So far, I have not seen anything from the company or even from the community that hints the program has started other than the plan was to begin the Beta program by this time. That doesn’t mean you aren’t correct. You may even have less than public info. Hoping that someone at a Seattle makerspace will let us know they have seen one.
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All I am am saying is, the people that “DO” know the answer, can not talk about it right now.
Nothing more…
But as you already pointed out, @dan already talked about presets in a open forum, so that info is already out there.
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Understood. We all are stuck in a circular logic situation. It’s a Schrodinger’s Cat problem. The Beta units exist and don’t exist at the same time.
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You got it! 
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Lol if I were a betting man…
Heh heh. I drew that conclusion a while ago.
Heh. I thought the first rule of Forge Club is that there is no Forge Club. Like I said before. This ‘I am not going to talk about it but talk about it’ is annoying. At this point it’s kind of obvious (and has been for a while). If it the rules where not to talk about it or insinuate it- Fail boat for sure.
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As everyone is closely watching Spike. Complaining about what he says or does not say…
The Beta team keeps plugging away in the other room and no one has a clue…
The drama builds…
Will they find the next bug in time…
Will the GF crash?..
We will be right back to “As the GlowForge Burns” after these quick messages from our sponsors…
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Does anyone know about suede, something like this: http://www.tandyleather.com/en/product/suede-remnants-12-oz-340-g ? Is it typically veg tanned? Will it cut well on the Forge?
Suede is the “meat” side of the leather. So it can come from any tanning process. It is normally thin, but that depends on how the leather was split and how thick the leather was to begin with. Lots of variables on how well it will cut. As that particular listing is for remnants it could wind up being a mix of all types.
There seems to be a Tandy outlet near everyone so if there is one by you, you can stop in and talk to the staff to see what they have on hand. As has been mentioned elsewhere, some stores are smallish retail outlets and others are larger. The one thing I find attractive about specialty stores, even if they are chains, is that the staff is usually knowledgeable. As opposed to big box stores and the thousand yard stare of their teenage shelf-stockers.
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Thanks for the info! My nearest Tandy is about an hour and a half away, so I might take a road trip some day. Maybe a phone call would be a better idea at first.
Sorry to keep raising this, but does anyone on this forum have a picture that shows what “doesn’t cut well” looks like? I get (and see with pictures) what laser-cutting veg tanned un-dyed leather looks like, but that’s only a portion of the available leather out there, and maybe some of that other leather out there cuts “OK”, or “good enough” - whatever that means.
For example, let’s say a particular type of leather tends to curl or shrink a bit during cutting. How about sandwiching the leather between two layer of sacrificial material such as cardboard, to hold the leather flat during cutting.
If we understood what goes wrong with less optimal leathers, perhaps we can discuss ways to compensate. Then we can explore more materials and gain greater value from our Glowforges, thereby making the product even more popular. Win-win.