Engraving on Thicker Material

[versteeghwoodworking]

Does anyone have any experience with engraving on thicker materials where you have to remove the crumb tray? I want to be able to engrave on cutting boards or butcher blocks to customize them.

[gewubs]

Hi,
Yes you can engrave thicker items, up to nominally 2" thick. There are many guides to do this on this forum. Read up on this and go for it. Make sure that nothing sticks up too high and hits the air assist fan. You must end up in the focus zone of the head.

[versteeghwoodworking]

Thanks! Do you know the best topics to read to find more on that?

[eflyguy]

There are literally dozens of them. Use the search function at the top of every page.
Here’s one:

Tutorial: How to cut without the Crumb Tray (Honeycomb)

Tutorial: How to cut objects too thick to have the honeycomb in place The GlowForge has a maximum material thickness it can cut through, but there is a maximum thickness you can even put on the honeycomb (crumb tray) even if you are surface engraving as the laser has a limited focus range of 0.01" - 0.4" *** above the surface of the honeycomb at the time of this tutorial. But let’s say you wanted to engrave something thicker that fits quite nicely inside the GlowForge but not with the crumb tray…

[gewubs]

Yep, I just typed “Cutting without the crumbtray” and a long list popped up. Use the search tool up at the top right>^. Read several of these and you will have the jist. Hope this helps.