Can you print right through the sticker?

[ntl]

I am using a piece of PG and need the whole area… can I laser right through the sticker or do I need to take it off first? I don’t want to accidentally take any of the masking paper off though…

Thanks!

[josephtpage]

If it’s just a cut then go right through it. If it is an engrave, I suggest flipping the board over and using the back instead.

[ntl]

I guess that is why there is masking on the back?

[kittski]

Joseph is right, it’s best to take it off for engraving as it will make a noticeable difference. (You can either turn it over or remove them.) Cutting through it should work fine, but I sometimes remove it even then just to be safe. I found the stickers come off pretty easy without destroying the masking.

[palmercr]

It also helps to stop reflections off the crumb tray from marring the bottom surface.

And you might want to engrave both sides.

[ntl]

How do you align things so that you can print both sides? I would imagine it is a SUPER manual process? I would hate to get a great engrave on one side and then an misaligned engrave on the other!

[palmercr]

Eventually one would hope the camera would be accurate enough but at the moment the simplest way for a symmetrical shape is to cut it out after the top engrave and flip it and put it back in the hole i it just came from making sure the sheet is well held.

[rpegg]

Yes, it is manual right now. For small designs like a wood medallion I will, in Inkscape or AI, draw both sides of the medallion with the cut outline side by side. The design can be irregular or symetrical. Make sure to use the mirror image of your original cut outline for the reverse side. So you will have both sides in your design S/W with the appropriate engraving centered and ready to go.

Then on the GF I cut and engrave one of each side. Remove the results, flip them and drop in the opposite cutout holes without moving the material or moving the design placement. Tell the GF to ignore the outline cut step and just engrave the other side. A perfect alignment.

You can do the same thing with a single overlapping copy by making one side and ignoring the other as long as the mirror image in your design S/W is precisely positioned.

[rand]

It lasers right through the sticker. I’ve both cut and etched thru the PG stickers with no problem at all.

[evansd2]

This is how:

Glowforge Interface - How to Align a Double Sided Engrave

I’m going to demo an alignment process below using my (ancient) version of Adobe Illustrator, but the process is the same for Inkscape or CorelDraw or Affinity Designer. Whichever one you like to use, you’ll do the same things, with the tools in that program. (I’m also going to give you the thought process that goes into creating a design with 2D Design software, to keep from having to write another one up, so if you can slog through it, you’ll pick up some stuff you need to know to make thing…

[jaz]

Thanks for the help, everyone.

@ntl Thanks for posting about this. If you have any other questions, please post a new topic.