First few projects with my newly delivered Forge

My patience has finally paid off with the arrival of my new Glowforge today! The only person more excited might have been the UPS driver when he realized I was actually going to help him move it off of his truck!

The Glowforge was a bit of an impulse buy and when I got it, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do with it. I don’t really have a background with things like this, so I’ve got a lot to learn! Fortunately so far the Glowforge is making this incredibly easy.

I’ve already created my ruler and that went very well. My first self-made project was to find a shark image, convert to vector and then try to make it. I didn’t pay too much attention in the UI before hitting print and honestly was very surprised and impressed when my shark suddenly had engraved teeth! I wasn’t expecting the engrave, though had I read what was on the screen I would have known. I just wanted to try to print it. The print was 3 parts, 2 engraves and 1 cut. I liked it a lot after the first engrave, less so after the 2nd. I pretty quickly figured out the web UI and eliminated the 2nd engrave and gave it another go. Much better.

After I was happy with that, I decided to try creating something with a real purpose. So my next print was a 100 yard MOA (Minute Of Angle) measuring device. I do some precision target shooting and thought this would be an easy way to measure my groups at the range. I also made two other ones for some friends, with their names on them as well.

Lastly, it was time to print out the escutcheon for my forge. It’s a pretty simple design, just some text and a couple free vectors that I threw together. For day 1, I’m pretty happy with it. Yes, my Glowforge is named “AK-Forgey7”. I like historic firearms and that’s what I came up with.

To @dan and everyone else at Glowforge, thank you so much for all the hard work you’ve put into this beautiful machine. I’ve got a long way to go on my design skills to fully be able to take advantage of it but I absolutely love this machine!

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Coolness! (Sharks look great with the teeth!) :smile:

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Sharks and laser + the punage = happy days! Great decision on the second shark, it really jumps out without the second engrave.

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Love those sharks! I’m amazed at what you have done on the first day. Don’t forget to eat and sleep!

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Thanks folks! For day one (and not having ever done anything like this before) I was pretty happy with the results. I made a few mistakes but learned some good lessons. Most importantly, spend a few minutes to understand what the UI is telling me it’s going to do!

Next steps will be figuring out exactly where the long term home for the forge is going to be. I want it out in my garage/shop area but need to have an electrician come and add a new outlet for it. Until that gets done, it needs to be in our office which means I need a better ventilation story than just opening the window and throwing the hose out. Lets just say the wifes nose was not very happy when she came home yesterday :laughing:. This weekend will be spent putting together an in-window ventilation system.

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My gun-loving husband says your forge name is brilliant. :blush:

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Welcome! Nice experimentation with the shark. Can’t wait to see what’s next :slight_smile:

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Very nice!

Ahhhh… Avtomat Kalashnikova… Forgey7… BRILLIANT!

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