every time i start a guitar. first half, 1hr 20m, running while i watch a webinar. then all the light score testing to align the second half and probably another hour engrave. keep your fingers crossed for me that i don’t mess it up. this one has the potential to be the coolest looking one yet.
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When I first saw this title I thought you were going to talk about how old your laser tube was.
But I feel the same way when starting a long process. “Let’s not mess this one up, okay?” The results you can get with these tools are amazing, and I count myself lucky to have been able to experience it.
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I always feel this way doing something for someone that has the ONLY one so ‘mess ups’ are not acceptable. That’s not even trying to line something up, I’d probably never get that right 
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Yeah, especially if you are running some precious raw material. I’m guilty of not doing enough pre-testing beforehand, but just winging it. It’s just laziness on my part.
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it would be less scary to do the second half of the engrave if the GFUI would let me rotate by typing in numbers instead of the kludgy “drag the knob around” that seems to only work in bigger increments than i need.so now i get to try to rotate the material a little bit instead of the artwork, which should be easier (but it isn’t).
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+1 feature request 
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For me this is directly proportional to the cost and quantity of the material that I am working with
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That was the best thing I ever found for snapmarks, even if a half a degree off they would make the alignment perfect. Nothing has replaced that.
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i’m not sure i could make the snapmarks work on a guitar body. i love them, they’re great for rotation, but i can’t print sets of snapmarks on the guitar.
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But you can print them on paper.
Of course, then you have to get the snapmarks oriented properly so… your method is good.
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yeah, i can print them on paper, but if i’m engraving the entire surface of the guitar, there’s no place for htem to be. and they can’t be “off the edge,” because there’s really no “off the edge”. and i don’t want paper on there where i’m engraving (other than the masking i’m already putting on, but i cant’ print on masking).
and someone made a separate piece way back that you could attach to the crumb tray with snapmarks already on it, but that doesn’t help me cuz i’m not using the crumb tray and the guitar is 1.75" tall and that thing is smaller.
i might be able to engineer the snot outta something, and maybe eventually i will, but every guitar isn’t the same height, so i might have to build something new every time (blech). or build something modular enough that i can shim that last 1/4" in tiny increments.
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Yeah, i was convinced you were doing it the best way for now because of the different guitar sizes and shapes.
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10th score line, still off. was really hoping to finish this during work hours today, but i guess not.
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The guitar has a shape. If you cutout that shape and engrave the snapmarks on the scrap beyond the shape, even if you have to lift that “jig” to match. they will still work as lomg as they are visible.
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they don’t all have the exact same shape. would have to be a new one every time. and would have to be the same height as the guitar (also not the same every time). it’s not a simple thing. i have a few thoughts, but they all require building jigs that are flexible, allow me to place a temp spacer that i’d have to build for each guitar that would attach to them to accommodate the differences. if i start doing more that 5-6 a year, i’ll have to get more serious about it.
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They only need to be the current shape. You cut and add snapmarks (engraved) when you have a final shape. You only need the snapmarks to align where engraving. Under that circumstance, you put them near the line where your break is. All you want is to fix slight rotation.
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