First Post:Wooden Coasters

I was introduced to Glowforge last May when I moved to NorCal for a new job. I’ve made lots of different things since then for work and personal, but never taken the time to post before! Here are some wooden coasters I made tonight for a friend. Just cleaned them up with water and a rag and will seal them later. Any tips for cleaning burn marks off of non-proofgrade wood?

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Nice! :slightly_smiling_face:
A light sanding works on unfinished wood.

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Found the free svg here: https://shopcraftables.com/products/Free-the-mountains-are-calling-and-i-must-go-SVG-Cut-File/

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What kind of wood is that, I like it! Also, your lettering needs to be joined (unless it’s supposed to look like that, artistic license and all that), plenty of posts here in the forum that a quick search would clear up. In Illustrator it’s called Unite, which can be found under the Pathfinder menu. I only use Illustrator, so I can only help you there :wink:

And yeah, sanding works pretty quick, and if it’s not too bad, some baby wipes work well.

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These turned out well, but I think they would look a bit nicer with the script letters joined.

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They look great! Definitely a light sanding will help get the scorch marks off.

I have used the alcohol hand sanitizer for doing a first class job of removing excess gunk and it evaporates faster than the water. It will also dissolve the adhesive of the masking and make that easier to get off. Where I want it to get rid of scorching I use a bathroom bleach to get rid of most of that. A couple of warnings however. It dissolves the glue holding MDF together as well, and warping can be an issue but if clamped until dry it will stay flat.

Sanding after is recommended in any case to take down any raised wood grain and i have sanded with as fine as 2000 grit to get a nice polish.

If you can, masking it first is the easiest non-wet solution. There’s a lot sources posted in the forums. If you just want a little bit your local sign ship would probably give you a few feet for free. :slightly_smiling_face:

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It was just scraps I had from another project. I believe it’s just plywood (non-proofgrade) that has one side primed.
Thanks for the Illustrator tip! Still learning about all its features.

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These are really nice, that’s a nice graphic!

A quick look shows it to be “Revolution” Plywood It is one-sided and the surface wood incredibly thin so heavy sanding is not a good thing as it would go right through that surface. It is much smoother than first impressions would suppose but to polish it up I have used 1200 grit sandpaper but not heavier.
Getting it wet will not cause warping and Hand Sanitizer to clean and then let totally dry before the 1200 sanding.