I need some help. I’ve been cutting very intricut earrings and it’s burning some of it. What can I do?
A good place to start is to research the effects of power and speed & number of passes. The laser is certainly selectively burning; it is up to you to find the sweet spot for the effect that you are after. BTW, the way to become a power user is to explore. Other people have tried things and published their findings, but those exact settings may not be best for your application. Start out with lower powers and keep records so that as you find the results that you like you can reproduce them.
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Exactly. Keep testing until you find settings that work with your design, or change the design.
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Would you suggest to still tape it. I thought maybe double taping it but I was afraid it wouldn’t cut through
Some people engrave without masking to get fine detail. You will need to clean your item if you do that. I do not think that double masking will be of any benefit, as the laser needs to burn through the masking in order to cut the work piece. You can experiment of course. Just remember that when you are not cutting Proofgrade material using PG settings you are on your own. Watch for fire and excessive burn on the backside of the work.
It is proof grade materials that came with the glowforge
The Proofgrade settings should work quite well for the general cut, score, and engrave tasks. Take a peek at the settings that Glowforge PG are proposing and try tweaking them a bit. It may be that what you are trying to cut is simply not possible to achieve. To change the settings you adjust in the Manual settings area. I would tweak only one item at a time so that you know what affect it has.
Good Luck!
Thanks!
Also helps to know what the limits are for each material. Here’s a test print I have for checking just how fine I can go. Scale is 10ths of mm (so widest is 1.0mm here…)
On 2.5mm Ash, about 0.7mm wide is as small as I can go:
I drop the power by 5-10 points when I’m cutting intricate pieces – you have to experiment to see how much you can get away with and still cut through, though. Definitely mask, and consider using the back as the front – sometimes the side that’s down while cutting comes out looking less crispy.
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