Hi Everyone! We just received the Glowforge a few days ago and I have tons of questions! This group and google have already been so helpful but I still have some questions that I can’t find the exact answers to and was wondering if anyone here could help :)!
Does anyone buy the wood at Home Depot or Lumber yards? Or am I better off just buying it off of the glowforge website?
I have a little Etsy shop and have used the Cricut for all projects. Is there a way to convert a Cricut design over to the Glowforge?
What is the best software to use for Glowforge projects?
I mainly work with wood- what is the best type of glue to work with?
We started a little Etsy shop during lockdown and we are hoping to take it to the next level with the Glowforge… I just have to learn how to use it first haha! Thank you so so much!
The good news is that a lot of these questions are already answered and here for the taking, you just need to hunt a little bit.
This is maybe the most discussed topic on the forum! Check out this post, particularly #1a, #2, and #6:
Good question, and I’m sure a cricut expert will be by to talk about it. I started with a Cricut Explore, but I was doing all my work in Inkscape and saving as SVGs. In the meantime before someone else comes along, you can search for “cricut design space” and maybe get some insight.
Hah, wars have been fought over less here (people have feelings about their software). I should really add this as a topic on the common questions post, but until I do, search is again your best friend:
Glues are pretty subjective, depending on what you’re trying to do. For the bulk of my wood work, I use a plain yellow wood glue (Titebond Original) but it’s not waterproof, so you’d need to look for waterproof glues in those cases (Titebond III, for example)
Anyway, there you go! It’s a learning curve, but it’s pretty fun
Welcome to the forum.
The search function of this forum will be your best friend.
Many people buy wood from big box stores and other suppliers
People use whatever software they have or want to learn. Inkscape is free. Adobe Illustrator and Affinity Design are not.
I don’t think you can make a direct transfer of Cricut designs to an SVG or pdf for Glowforge to use, but I don’t really know anything about Cricut.
There are all sorts of posts about glue in the forum, so best search and decide which one you like best.
@evand2 gave you the great links…
for me:
I like the purebond lumber from Home Depot…comes precut GF size!!
Cricut uses a lot of svg files…that’s what GF uses too…plus others for engraving. PDFs also work well-in fact better than svg sometimes because you have to watch that the size doesn’t get messed up in the upload on some…
I started with Inkscape (free). Recently purchased Affinity Designer but am so used to Inkscape, i’m not making the transition well!!
I like Locktite…note, on the PG stuff you need to sand where you’re glueing as the slick finish won’t bond well.
With wood, the standard yellow wood glue is very universal. Gorilla Glue has a very good wood glue, but Elmers works as well. (note that Gorilla Glue has many types, and their original foaming glue is not usually good for what we do)
Hello, and welcome! I see you’ve already received lots of great advice. I love the PureBond wood from Home Depot. It fits perfectly in the and both cuts and engraves well.
Before I got my glowforge I use to mainly use design space with my cricut designs. There is no way to export designs from design space. You can take a screen shot of the design and do a trace bitmap in inkscape as a work around but that is only useful for simple designs.
I thought designs space was the best think at that time and was a little unsure on learning inkscape and other software tools. I jumped in and learned it and it turned out not to be as bad of a learning curve as you would think. Design space is extremely limiting once you realize all the things you can do in other platforms.
and both cuts and engraves well.