I love proofgrade plywood

Made on a Glowforge
#1

I’ve been making beard combs for about a year now. It used to be, laser engrave with my 2.8w jtech laser diode, then mill the shape with a 1/16" down spiral bit, all on the cnc machine. Then sand. Then 3 to 4 coats of shellac. It was about 30 minutes of hands on time, 30 minutes of machine time. That was a lot of work for $12 each.

With proofgrade thick cherry plywood, its 12 minutes to engrave and cut, package, ship.

When figuring in time and extra material for finishing, you just can’t beat proofgrade.

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#2

They look great too! :grinning:

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#3

You got that right!

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#4

Thanks you two!

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#5

I see so many people try to use proofgrade as a negative when comparing the glowforge to other lasers. I was skeptical when it was first mentioned, but I LOVE the stuff. Not to mention I get better photo engraves on PG maple ply than pretty much anything else out there.

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#6

I don’t understand why people criticize Proofgrade. Many of the other “laserable” materials that are sold by other companies (e.g. Johnson Plastics) are similar in nature–plywood veneer with MDF/particle board core.

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#7

Because people are spreading untruths and misconceptions: stating that you have to buy Proofgrade and use that; stating that the warranty is only good if you cut Proofgrade (which in fact is the complete opposite; PG offers you an additional level of warranty that no other manufacturer does).

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#8

I agree. I’m currently working on a 3,000 token order, and not having to sand, stain and finish them will save me days and expense.

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#9

Agree 100% :smile:

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#10

Nice! Fantastic turn on productivitely & profit on a great item.

But I hope your time includes cleaning the soot off the combs–bad enough getting soot on fingers, let alone in one’s beard! (I use soft toothbrush & rinse w/ tap water–helps soften the masking & makes it easier to get that off, too!).

And I really like the proofgrade plywood, too–so far really just loads of signs for my booth, but also an element for some of my leather bags…

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#11

With the correct settings (not the proofgrade settings) it leaves next to no soot. It is instead a nice medium brown color, not black.

Any residual soot comes of with a quick wipe of alcohol. Takes about 20 seconds. So… I guess you can call $0.33 of clean time included in the price.

And no, sorry. I will not share the settings here. That will cause my topic to be removed from the made on the glowforge section.

Honestly, water is not the best choice for wood.

The masking comes off in seconds with gorilla tape as per Dan’s how to video.

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#12

Fortunately you don’t have to, since it was Proofgrade. :wink:

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#13

I said I did NOT use the proofgrade settings and that there are better settings that do not char the edge like the stock settings

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#14

If you’d like to share them, you can always link to a post or writeup in the BTM section. (Several of us do that, and they get just as much traffic there, if not more.)

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#15

No worry about opting not to share settings…

And wood does come out a lot cleaner from the GF than leather–so comparatively little cleaning (so used to doing leather & cleaning it, forget wood is easier). But bit of water OK provided you don’t let it soak in!

I’ve been too cheap to buy extra tape just to remove the masking–but it’s a great tip–esp. w/ small details–but a bit of rubbing & using bits of the masking you’ve already pulled off works, and no extra $ involved. Suppose if I was doing more for production pieces like you are, it’s indeed worth getting the tape to save the time!

Cheers!

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#16

I’ll do like @Jules said and link to a post. But later tonight

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#17

Here you go

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