honestly i don’t think there’s ever been a line, we just too easily decided that women did crafts so men needed to come up with a better name for what they wanted to do, like maker.
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I’m interested in knowing what sacrificial material they’re using for the mat underneath. I have an Explore Air, and it’s basically just cardboard with some glue to tack the material down. Which ends up being an extra consumable, because it ends up losing its grip, and weeding complicated patterns is a massive pain. It looks like maybe there’s some foam rubber underneath, but I don’t see any new mats for sale on their site. Might be nice if it were a self-healing material… but then, that’s one less thing to rebuy!
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Aw, I could swear there’s a word for that. Hold on, it’ll come to me…
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Let’s say you are choosing between two options for your weekend.
One option is a craft fair.
One option is a maker fair.
I don’t think you would expect the two fairs to be the same.
I do think you would expect to see both men and women participating at both.
Any gender version of a human can be “Crafty”.
“Makey” is a robot.
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When I was younger maker did not exist, I don’t remember crafter existing eather but may have. It got exhausting telling people your hobbies. There really should be a term that includes both.
Very interesting. I know my wife would love this in making quilts.
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well, you’d be wrong. craft fairs may have been something quite different 30 years ago,
but not now. i think the only real difference between them is that craft fairs tend to be sales focused as opposed to exhibition focused.
i dunno, like i said, i don’t think there’s much of a difference these days. if you really insisted, i’d suggest diy, perhaps, as that’s no longer just home repairs.
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We used to have multiple cricut machines but they took the ability to use you own art away at one point so we moved away from it and never looked back. However in this write up it states you can up load your own designs for free so maybe they allow you to be more creative now. Still will not get me to buy one but it does look pretty neat.
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All I have to say dan, is that when you decide to make a new head for the Glowforge, please, please, make one with an electronic rotating mirror at the end. That would be amazing.
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aside from the wholly additional features, it’s an interesting idea in that potential speed upgrades in certain conditions could be exceptional.
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If only the glowforge had wheels to roll those long materials through the pro… I also like the calligraphy pen. The rotary blade and knives would be great, if I weren’t getting a laser. Maybe for some non-laserable materials though… Definitely ideas for the interchangeable head.
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Looks cool. Needs to be able to do 45" wide fabric and I’d be excited. The Glowforge will handle anything smaller.
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Kinda like women wear bracelets, men wear cuffs.
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I looked at this many months ago. It definitely has its place in the home maker space. I mean, for the price what can really compete?! I love the versatility it looks like it has right off the bat. Cutting, writing, works with hundreds of materials, big catalog. A little small though, I think. Frankly, I considered buying one to compliment my Glowforge. But then I figured I should probably wait until I got my Glowforge so I could really make that decision. Thanks for reminding me about it. I’m going to look at it again!
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The fact that you still need a sticky mat to hold the materials down while using a drag knife would be a pain. The fabric will lint the mat and the wood will shift over time as the stickiness wains. It’s still a great machine and it’s probably better then mine (I have a BossKut)
However I haven’t used a laser before so maybe I’m biased but cleaning those mats and trying to ‘restock’ them is a chore even though the project was worth it
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I am jumping directly from having no ‘cnc’ machines to the Glowforge, and cricut still doesn’t hold much appeal for me. However, I am hoping a pen/marker head becomes available for the Glowforge someday for making sharpie drawings (among other things)
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I hear you and the hopper hears you too.
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Looks interesting, but I’m just about maxing out my maker space now, since it has to fit in a corner of my living room with a printer, 3D printer, 3D scanner, laptop, and Glowforge. I’ll be happy with my laser, I think.
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I think the only thing that excites me about this is the scoring pen tip which would be great for embossing and scoring cards and such. Other than that GF handles everything else that this does.
I also can’t imagine that xacto blade tip lasting very long, and I wonder if you can just replace the blade inside or have to replace the whole tip-cartridge.
That looks to do the same things as my Cameo, which I have used extensively. For the price, the Cameo was pretty amazing and I’ve paid for it about 20x over on the products I’ve made with it, but there are definite limits on what you can accomplish with a blade and I hit the limits on many occasions and had to simplify my artwork concept significantly, which I don’t like to do.
The laser will let me do the full detail I wanted to do all along, so the Cameo will probably be relegated to really simple cuts or doing vinyl. I won’t miss the pain of waiting through a complex cut only to have the blade drag and tear the paper or have it pop off the sticky mat and get totally screwed up.
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