I want to cut cardstock 80lb. I have tried all different speeds and powers (high and low) - trying to cut so that it doesn’t have too much brown cut marks. Cutting while card, colored card is usually not a problem. Any suggestions on what the perfect setting are? TIA.
this might help.
searching the posts here is the fastest way to find an answer.
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Welcome to the forum.
I find that the Proofgrade 80# cardstock works really well.
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Are you using an Aura 
or a Glowforge 
?
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I agree with this…but, for the Aura, scoring wasn’t deep enough, so I made a new preset which raised the power to 6…and now works perfectly for my needs.
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I am a paper crafter. Got the Glowforge to enhance my paper crafting throwing in a little wood too. I am familiar with proofgrade materials for wood/acrylic etc., but what is proofgrade cardstock - sorry not following. Is it a certain brand name?
I am using a Glowforge plus.
I cut a lot of cardstock. There is some variation between different card stocks, even of the same weight. Also, if you don’t already know, “weight” is more complicated than one would intuit. [1]
So, I do a materials test on each type of cardstock I use to determine the optimal settings:
I usually come up with both a “fast” setting (usually full speed) and, a slower setting (around 200) for use on things like spirals and tiny details.
Since custom settings are supposed to be restricted to the Beyond the Manual section, I will DM you with a recommended starting point. The Proofgrade 80# settings are probably also a good starting point.
[1] Here’s the short summary I give about paper weight when I teach papercraft stuff (feel free to ignore):
In the United States and Canada, we most commonly see the old English standard known as basis weight. Basis weight is the weight, in pounds, of a ream of sheets at their original manufactured or “basic” size. While that sounds straightforward, different grades of paper have different basic sizes and, the number of sheets in a ream can also vary in some cases. So, 80lb writing stock and 80lb cover stock will be quite different.
Europe uses grams per square meter (g/m^2), which standardizes sheet sizes making the measurement comparable across grades of paper.
There are measures of thickness (“caliper") and stiffness (“rigidity index") but, those are rarely provided outside of papers made for specific applications.
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No, it is not a particular material. Glowforge has built in speed/power settings for 80 lb. cardstock as well as 20# copy paper. The settings can be found in the drop down menu of materials.
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Ok, sorry misunderstood - familiar with that. Thought I was missing something after all these years working with paper. I was just curious when doing a search others had stated that they were using different settings other than the Proofgrade normal one. Thanks!
Thank you so much! I will definitely try what you suggested in the message - makes total sense. I am new to Glowforge and just trying to tweak the process on cardstock. Thanks!
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One of the best thing about the forum is that it holds many years of user experiences, test and insights. I think you would really benefit from this post: Somewhat Comprehensive Testing of Settings for Cutting Paper and Cardstock
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