I did some searching here, but couldn’t find an answer. I received my Glowforge Basic today (Yeehaw!), then this afternoon I received an email saying my Proofgrade materials were shipping- should be here middle of next week. My question is, without the pack of materials am I going to get everything set up then have nothing to calibrate or print on? I read through all of the unpacking and setup instructions and didn’t see anything yet about an included piece of material in the Glowforge packaging. I’m sure the calibration instructions are somewhere after that, but so far I hit the end of the setup section where one would set up wifi. If the material needed is in the Proofgrade pack, should I just put off setting up the Glowforge ? “I just don’t think I can live with that kind of rejection.” -George McFly
Do you have any 1/8 wood?
Congratulations on your bouncing baby Glowforge!
No! Fire that puppy up, and just use whatever (non toxic and reasonably sane) materials you have on hand. Baltic birch , cardboard, paper, leather are all viable options. Look through the “Made on a Glowforge” category to see some of the cool projects that others have done with common materials 
Welcome to the Forum and congrats on your GF! There’s nothing in the Proofgrade package that’s required by the setup routine. There is not a sheet of PG in the GF box, but you will be able to set up and calibrate. Unofficially, if you have a sheet of 1/8 inch birch ply from Home Depot, Lowes, Michaels, etc., the ‘official’ PG settings will work pretty well. You can access those by clicking “Unknown” in the upper left of the UI and searching for “Medium Birch Plywood.”
Wow! You guys are awesome! Thank you for the warm welcome and sage advice. Great, so I’ll get cracka-lackin with some paper or cardboard, then be knocking on the front door of the Depot tomorrow morning. I don’t have any 1/8" wood sitting around… yet 
I’ve got a feeling I’ll soon have piles of the stuff. After two years, I guess I just figured the GF wasn’t ever going to come. Shoulda been more prepared! Thanks again to all who replied!
This happened to me too (
delivered before 
). I had lots of cardboard and some 1/8” mdf on hand. I had no luck with the mdf, but cardboard was a good test platform! Have fun!
Don’t forget the free flooring samples available at HD.
I’ve been too busy forging ahead to test settings. The worst thing I’ve done so far is ruin a piece of leather when I selected medium leather from the menu and it didn’t cut all the way through. I’ve been using that piece for smaller projects so all was not lost.
My next project calls for scoring the leather so I’ll run some power tests on that.
As others had said, PG takes some of the guesswork and testing out of the picture but it is definitely not required.