Finally got around to do a little testing on some magazines. I think there is a little too much detail for the size of the engrave but it turned out ok. Next will move to the rifle itself and see how well the metal engraves.
Guns are on my list. Excited to see what you do. Is this plastic and what settings did you use?
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No such thing as too much detail on a glowforge. I would try messing with the settings a bit more.
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Its funny, when I come here to ask a question, like did anyone engrave on a gun…
I find the answer before, I even ask the question…
Looking forward to seeing an engraving on the AR next…
Awesome work thanks for sharing
I cannot wait until I get my glowforge
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This is a plastic p-mag from magpul. Settings were full power and full speed using vary power at 270 lpi. It was just a total guess on the settings. Not very happy with the result. I think I just need to sacrifice a mag and print a test pattern to find the best setting. I’ll do that next on the other side and share the results. Anyone have a test pattern .svg I could use?
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Can’t you order something made out of the same material I would imagine it would be cheaper that trial and error on a mag
I suppose I could but I have plenty on hand to test with. I can always engrave over it again to remove the test pattern or I can just get it hydro dipped to cover it.
hydro dip
I have friends that are huge gun fan I can’t wait to personalise there gear. I’ll receive my GF on the 8th I can’t wait.
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I’m an avid collector so I have lots things I want to try. This was half the reason I purchased the Glowforge. I’ll update when I am able to do some more testing.
Eh mags are disposable anyways. Everyone has a few broken one’s kicking around. I have a container sitting by my glowforge with broken/cracked slides, frames and mags to test on
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What plastic are they?
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Not sure on the specific polymer they are using. Their website doesn’t say.
That’s rather wicked! 
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Magpul keeps their recipe close to their chest. I suspect it’s something along the lines of nylon-6.
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Honestly, that’s pretty bad ass. What type of file did you print from? Was it a .jpeg? Was the crumb tray out when the mag was in? Any other settings you had to modify? And was it in the glow forge app?
Sorry for all the questions, but I just got my machine a week ago and am just figuring it all out. Of course, every friend and their dog wants a mag or lower engraved!
Thanks
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I used a .jpeg file that I found online. Crumb tray was removed and I put 3 groups of 3 magnets stacked on top of each other and rested the mag on top of those. Magnets stick well to the bottom of the Glowforge and the spring inside the mag. I used my calipers to get the mag to the same level as the top of the crumb tray and the 3 magnets just happened to get me where it needed to be. Focus was set for .500”. Setting were full power, full speed @270lpi
I did some testing and found that these settings worked better. Engrave: s-1000,p-50%,340lpi & Score: s-500,p-12%,340lpi. Did some small letter testing and found the score setting worked really well. I think there is still some tweaking to the settings but it’s a good starting point. The engraves are kind of hard to see until you get light on it at the right angle. I think my next tests will be lowers then painting a spot on the mag where I want the object and engrave the paint away to reveal it. I’ll post pics of that when I get around to it.
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Your focus setting might have been your issue. Setting it to .5 would mean you mag was .5" above your crumb trays regular height which is doesnt sound like it was
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Duh!!! Can’t believe I didn’t catch that 
. I measured the height of the mag off the floor and it defaulted to .500” from that input value. Thanks for catching that error. I’ll redo it with the correct height and check the results. Maybe they should put something in the ui for focus height without the crumb tray. So say I have a 1” tall object I plug in that value in and it tells me to space the object up from the floor the correct amount and automatically set the focus. I know it’s easy math but you get caught up in other things and it’s easy to make an error.
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If you want, I made a tutorial on doing the measurements back in PRU days:
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Ill throw a glock mag in mine tonight. The annoyance of taking out the crumb tray has stopped me recently.
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