Double Sided Engraving/Cut

Was anything ever developed for double sided cutting and engraving? I’m trying to make some game tokens that are double side engraved and having a really impossible time of it. I see some potential software updates mentioned in the latter parts of 2016 but nothing beyond that.

For reference, the tokens are square and I have to make 540 of them.

Yes, there’s a very easy way to do it in the design. There’s a tutorial that describes the process here for Illustrator, but same concept applies for any of the design software.

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I was looking at this tutorial yesterday and I just wasn’t getting it. I appreciate your reply, though. I looked at it again and it made way more sense after a good night’s sleep and a nice big cup of coffee. It took me a minute to figure out that I can put a weeding jig around each section of tokens and use your method. Thanks so much, @Jules!

Oh, and if you get sick of buying tape, I found that magnets are great for sticking draftboard to the crumb tray.

Good deal! Glad you figured it out! :grinning:

(And I still like the tape…magnets can cause the machine to throw an air assist error so I don’t use them. It’s tape or the Honeycomb Pins.)

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It worked perfectly! Thanks again!

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Only thing that would be good is if one could actually do double-sided cuts like they’d talked about years ago. (Cutting thicker materials by flipping them over and simply cutting the oposite side.) That would be extremely helpful.

Yup. Still waiting for that.

I bet that’s hinged on the Pro pass-thru stuff.

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I’ve done it with the Snapmarks, but without kerf adjusting the jig, the edge looks like total crap. (And you get a really prominent slant on the kerf on the thicker materials.)

Just trying to figure out how Snapmark would help. I’m guessing you used a Snapmark jig (as opposed to putting Snapmark marks on the material itself)?

Right. If you are going to use Snapmarks, you can’t flip them over and have the machine see them right? So you have to lock down a jig out of thinner material, and leave that facing upright. The design has to be perfectly centered, you have to kerf adjust the jig, and the cut still winds up crappy with a lot of sanding down. (It’s a lot easier to go through the material from one side, using multiple passes, although it chars the living daylights out of it.)

What are you wanting to cut out of half inch material? (I’d go with a jigsaw for anything less than a single straight cut, cause it’s just too much work to do it in a laser.) :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Makes sense. I haven’t tried Snapmark at all yet. I should really get around to that, huh.

I have nothing in mind at the moment. Just have needed it in the past and ended up having to cut multiple thinner sheets and binding them to make 1 thicker. One of the things that really impressed me years ago on the Glowforge site was the concept of cutting thicker materials by doing double-sided cuts that the unit itself would perfectly align.

Yeah, that would be cool, but the math involved in it is kind of hairy. If they can pull it off, I’m going to be gobsmacked, and the strictures to do it might not make it worth the time. (Sometimes grand ideas don’t turn out to be the best use of your resources if they are a limited use case.)

I’m glad you resolved it!