Hello everyone, who can help me? I have a Glowforge pro and I want to engrave a guanacaste cutting board without the engraving being too dark and especially deep.
When engraving an unknown material you will have to experiment. Hopefully you have some scraps or a spare piece you can experiment on. You might try telling your glowforge your material is Walnut Hardwood and see what the settings are, and go from there. If you don’t have any spare material you might try turning the cutting board over and possibly using the walnut hardwood settings engrave your name (very small) and see what it looks like. If it’s too dark you can reduce power or speed up the cut. I’m not familiar with Guanacaste wood. Unfortunately there is no magic set of numbers, just trial and error. I go through this all the time, other than proofgrade material everything is trial and error.
Good luck
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You’re removing material by burning. Some materials will produce ash that can be easily removed or does not accumulate significantly, some are permanently stained. Many fall somewhere in the middle, or can be cleaned up using any number of methods discussed here. You might need to use masking to prevent the dark ash from soaking in to the grain of the wood adjacent to the engraved areas.
The only option is to test as stated, using your material, or an identical piece.
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Guanacaste has a very low Janka hardness rating of just 470, making it only slightly harder than basswood (410). I’d recommend starting with the settings for “Basswood Hardwood” (not plywood).
English Walnut has a Janka rating of ~1200, btw.
As long as you don’t move the workpiece or the flies in the app, you can start with lighter settings, then work up to the desired darkness and depth.
Good luck!
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That’s a good approach. Looking back over some of the heavy/deep engravings I’ve done, Poplar was the one with the least char and if there was any, it must have cleaned up well. I made a set of 3D door nameplates using it. It’s only 540. My go-to is hand sanitizer on an toothbrush so I’m sure that’s what I would have used.
I made one of these from poplar as well, very deep engrave.
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Thank you so much @nikonpro1. I’ll use that Walnut Hardwood option to try it out. Unfortunately I don’t have much material to try.
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Thank you so much @dwardio , what a good information you have given me. I had no idea what “Janka” meant, now I know thanks to you.
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You’re most welcome! I didn’t either until starting along the GF path seven years ago… 
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Maybe basswood hardwood setting would be better, I didn’t realize Guanacaste only had a janka hardness of 470. As long as you don’'t move the cutting board in between burning you can start out with a low power, or fast speed and see the results. I guess I would mask the area first.
Good luck
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