Admittedly, even if they’re perfectly aligned, you’d probably still want to sand if you need a totally even surface with stacked layers. This is because on any cut, you’ll end up with a slight slant on all the edges of your pieces, due to the fact that the beam focal point is at one very specific distance from the lens, not across the entire thickness of your material. Basically, instead of getting straight side walls in your cutting line, you always get a slight “v” shape, with the pieces just a hair wider on the lower surface than they are on the upper. Normally, it’s such a slight slant you’ll barely notice, but if you glue laminate multiple layers side-by-side, you’ll end up with slight ridges at the bottom of every piece where the material flares out just a bit.
Unless you’re going for a textured grip. Then you’re golden.
I handcraft a lot of items and sometimes getting a surface “just perfect” becomes such a task, that it’s almost better (and more unique/interesting) to make it so far away from uniform that it obviously is not trying to be perfect. Some might call that being lazy, I call it artistic.
You want to go the fastest you can at the highest power possible to have clean edges. Speed will almost never be the limiting factor on your Glowforge, since cutting speeds are much slower than engraving speeds.
We’ll optimize Proofgrade presets to minimize char so you don’t have to worry about it there. For your own materials, you want the highest power/fastest you can go while reliably cutting through.
In other news today, Ed Burns, most noted for his roles in The Brothers McMullen and Saving Private Ryan has gone into protective custody after finding numerous threats in his social media feed regarding “getting rubbed out”, “sanding him away” and “leaving dark marks” where ever he is found. Authorities are baffled by the mysterious aqua colored. stylized G that seems to be some type of cult icon that is found in most of the messages.
