From Brigid's forge: ravens and wolves and knots

Made on a Glowforge
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I finally had some free time to fire up “Brigid” this Sunday!

Celtic knots with ravens and wolves seemed appropriate for the first prints from Brigid’s forge. (NOTE: I did not draw those knots. Art was found via google image searches.)

First up was the proofgrade draftboard. Beautiful - and surprisingly entertaining watching laser vaporize the draftboard.

Next up: Marble tiles. When I tried to scale up the prints and cut on the marble, the app kept crashing. I finally got the file to start, but scared myself when I mis-measured the marble tile at 3/8" depth… the printer head went through the motions of engraving but left nary a trace on the tiles. I was convinced I had killed her for that long 45 minutes.

Thanks to other community member posts, I also discovered the app was likely crashing because my files were too large. I sliced the ravens file into quarters, reconnected them in Inkscape, then ran that on proofgrade maple (5.5"x5.5"). Unfortunately, the reconnections looked smooth in Inkscape, but in the engraving, the intersections of the pieces were marked by darker, raised lines.

Final run of the evening was the original ravens knot file on a 4x4 marble tile. (4 passes, full power, full speed, 225 lines per inch).

It was worth the wait.

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46 Likes
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Wow! Stunning! Wonderful design!

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There are a number of possibilities about why your file was too large… was it vectors or raster? The GF should be able to handle anything that is 4x4", I’m guessing that if it was a vector, it was just overly complicated, or if it was a raster, it was too large to begin with, and you could resample it down to a reasonable image size.

In any case, it looks great, and I think you can solve that overlap problem with a little work on the source files if you’re going to do it again.

1 Like
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Truly stunning work!

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Looks like you had fun weeding all the great stuff you made.

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Oh, it’s beautiful! What’s your plan for the pieces?

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Very Nice! And it was worth the wait!

Hahaha! A reflection of the value you attach to your investment of your money and two years.

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I wish I could claim I designed the knots! (Perhaps someday…)

I was only responsible for some Inkscape work to raise the contrast & execution via Glowforge.

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It’s like when I moved north into snow country: snow shoveling was loads of fun for the first 10-15 times. So was this!

2 Likes
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I need to remember to think about multiple passes. Awesome outcome!

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Love the look on marble! :grinning:

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I have to have a plan? :wink: OK, “Inspiration”.

The first runs are on my desk at work (healthcare, business side) as a reminder that I have worth outside of what I accomplish in the office.

Longer-term: I’d like to create more designs like this to etch into trivet and coaster material, both as gifts and possibly to sell.

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Thanks!

Truly, it’s pretty subtle if you look at it directly overhead. But from a low angle, it’s neat. I may try additional passes on another tile, and I’d also like to play with adding a background color into the etching for contrast.

1 Like
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SO TRUE. :rofl:

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Tremendous thanks for the great suggestions! To answer your question, the file was vectors. I think you’re correct - it was simply too complex for the app to handle.

I am completely new to Inkscape, so there’s bound to be some lessons I learn the hard way. Thank goodness for the detailed online manual and introductory lessons!

I’ll likely circle back to the fixing the ravens file later this weekend. First free time with Brigid since round one 4 weeks ago!