So, Decided to sacrifice some my precious loft stored walnut. Planed a piece of walnut down to 0.43" and threw it into the Glowforge. I did not expect it to work and was pleasantly surprised. Not as easy to cut as the Oak in my previous topic.
Still the Glowforge was able to cut it in one pass. There was significant charing on the edges and the cut/kerf is a bit ugly. But with a quick swipe of fine steel wool to dust off the char, it came out looking just fine.
Edit: Just learned that there is the possibility that this pre-release unit may have a higher power tube intended only for the Glowforge Pro. There is no way for me to know.
You’re welcome. Some wood types work well, some are much tougher or even impossible. And plywood is often an unknown. I have had problems getting through some 0.2" plywood with the same settings as the walnut.
FYI for others: This doesn’t mean that when Glowforge enables double sided capabilities that we will be able to cut through material twice as thick. The cut line is likely to be really ugly on thicker material. 0.5" total with double sided cutting is the official expected maximum.
I’ve had it in my head that we wouldn’t be able to do what you just did. I didn’t think GF had enough “oomph” to get through that thickness in a single pass. Good to know.
Nice trick with the steel wool too, I would have reached for fine sandpaper without thinking about steel wool.
You might be able to get through something slightly thicker material with a Pro but the deeper you go the less precise and clean the cut will be… I’m not sure whether it is the spread of the beam or the vaporized material that affects the cut more as you go deeper. The cut edge is noticeably slanted from the perpendicular. Actually looks more like an hourglass. You have to look really closely for it, but the effect is there. For most projects it is slight enough not to be a problem. When parts need to fit together tightly it might be an issue.
Kind of feel guilty for the unit that I have. Haven’t found any significant problems with the H/W. As you know a least a couple of the early Pre-Releases had issues. If it wasn’t for the fact that I needed the cloud to continue operations, I would change locations so Glowforge couldn’t find me to get it back.
Mine has a number of flaws, and even with those flaws its still great. I cant imagine being able to use one where I dont have to account for all those things and have a greater range of capabilities. Im beyond excited to get my release version.
I just got some upgrades in for my k40 and am in the process of putting that together, but in the meantime I still have my glowforge running nonstop. Once I get one with a straight beam im going to be building so much stuff!
Especially out of hardwoods. Its so much easier to cut through those than plys, as youve shown. Itll go through poplar like butter. No char at all. Very light tinting on the side. Cant wait to see how the pro handles that.
It’s pretty incredible what you’ve been testing so far as far as single-pass cuts. Thanks for sharing the info! My brother was shocked when I told him about your oak cut… “Seriously? 1 pass?”
Walnut is so pretty.
That’s really stunning. Thank you for sharing.
I think I would love to just look at that chunk… never mind building something.
I love that wood!
Builder cut down a 3’ diameter black walnut to build my Son’s house in Tenn. They had 2 logs staged, one was >12 feet long the other >15 feet. Straight as an arrow. That’s like a $10,000 tree.
We sawed a slab off of the biggest and I counted 182 rings.
I have 2 friends who are both clearing trees from their land right now. One has got maple, and the other has walnut and oak. I told them if they value their lives, they better keep those trees!
The one friend with the walnut tree and his wife have been sleeping on an air mattress for the last year while saving for the land they just bought. I told them I will build them a bed out of the walnut, and keep the rest for lasering etc as long as they dont have it hauled off.
Something I realized is relevant here - we’ve been shipping some of the prerelease units with Pro tubes. I don’t know which, but I’m going to guess that @rpegg got one of those. Your mileage may vary (by about 11%) if you got a basic.
Well that’s certainly a buried lead. How can the users know? Also… Does the software know which tube the machine has and adjust parameters accordingly?
That turned out really nice!