Great deal on 2 ply Engraving Acrylic

Should have ordered last night, I guess! I just ordered a bunch though. We’ll see what happens!

Ha Ha,
I just called them to kiddingly apologize for the run on the garage sale stuff. Talked to Jan, as Kelly was busy, but they did say they were happy to clear out the garage and were sorry that the website was not quite keeping up with sales.

I spent some time on the table saw today cutting the thicker stuff down to 20". A lot of the thin stuff scored and snapped cleanly. Now I have lots of little 4x12" practice/small item pieces.

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I must have been lucky to want stuff that really was off the beaten path as I am apparently getting everything I ordered this morning

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Same here. Got my shipping notice without any bad news from Kelly.

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I like the idea of being able to use the offcut to do my testing without impinging on a fullsize piece, just in case.

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Hm, just got a ups notice that they couldn’t deliver due to signature required and that I can pick it up at the local ups store…that’s a first…and sucks to have to sign for a 60 bucks delivery…

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I’m part of the “13th club” that received the awesome email that we can have our GF, but we’re now going on week 4 waiting for the actual shipping notice. The one good thing about the extended shipping has been my husband’s misconception about all the laser material that’s being delivered. This BF Plastics order came today and hubby said, “Wow, that company (GF) sure feels guilty about the delays and are sending lots of freebies. That’s really cool” I almost felt kind guilty not correcting him. Better just to let him think I didn’t pay for more laser stuff. Shhh, no one tell him. :rofl:

Thanks for the awesome link to the garage sale @bill_laba!

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What settings are you guys using for the 2 ply acrylic? I received my order from BF Plastics several days ago but haven’t had a chance to test it. Also, what’s the best way to cut the acrylic into pieces small enough for the Glowforge?

Here’s what I used on the engraves and cuts below. First off, I’ve had some error issues when trying to focus on very thin material. I’ve often had to raise paper and thin material off the bed with sacrificial material to avoid errors. In this case, the material was pretty forgiving regarding thickness settings. I just placed it on the bed and put in the Medium Acrylic preset. It was also not too particular about power settings. I got OK results using power anywhere from 4% to 25%. The higher the power, the deeper the engrave. The bigger logo was at 25% and the smaller one was at 10%. Speed for the engrave was 100 and LPI was at 225. Cuts were done at 100% power and 75 speed.


They actually look better than this poorly lit photo.

You HAVE to remove the plastic masking, or it will be a mess. I did not add any masking when cutting these. I’ve had great results cleaning them up with just plain old Isopropyl Alcohol (91%). It takes any char and stickiness off of them very easily. Of course, you should check how it reacts on the scrap first. It’s not likely that it would cause issues, but who knows how it could affect the finish of some of the colors and brands of this material.

By the way, this was just done with a quick copy paper print and bed scan, so the outside cut edges are a little rough. More diligent image prep with raster engraves and vector edges would produce a smoother edge. These were just some test items to see how different settings worked.

Almost forgot about the cutting down to size. For the thin material, it took a score and snap really well. A couple of good cuts with a razor knife and then snapping it off on the edge of the table produced some pretty smooth breaks. The remainder of the material is good for testing and small items like these.

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That turned out very nicely! :grinning:

Looks great! Thanks for the info!

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I’ve been having fun with scan and engrave too. I’m quite impressed

Just as a note, take photos on the crumb tray of your glowforge - the lighting is excellent in there :slight_smile:

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This was a clever idea:

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Thanks for the reminder. I’m going to try a lite engrave or a deeper score and see if it helps with the wicking to the center. Also need to get some nice, small clamps.

Binder clips from Staples or other office supply places work very well for clamping small items.

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The really big ones are especially awesome and have so many uses. They are my number one borrowed items from work. :nerd_face:

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And I have a ton of them around. Don’t know how I didn’t think of that. I’m even sure it was covered in numerous other posts. It’s tough getting old. . . . . .

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Me n’ you, both. Sometimes the most simple solutions seem to elude me. Gees.

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60mm binder clip, aint it pretty! :woman_mechanic:

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:smile: They go with the asparagus clamps (wide rubber bands from the grocers). The other place to find good rubber bands for small part clamping are rigger’s bands. Those are the rubber bands they use to band the lines (rigging) in parachutes. If you have a jump center nearby they’ll have them, otherwise you can buy them off the internet for a lot of money or not too much depending on the source. They’re super strong, wide, and a little thicker than the ones holding vegetables together. (I carry them in my luggage too - they’re super handy for corralling cords and stuff.)

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