Rule 1: Stick them with the pointy end!
@mpipes, was this blade already coated?
fify
Yes, it’s a black oxide coating from the factory.
That is a pretty wild design from the start! Very cool!
That turned out great!
Would you mind sharing your settings. Looks great
Settings for non-Proofgrade materials can only be discussed in the “Beyond the Manual” forum.
If you would like information on operation beyond what is covered by the manual, you may discuss it in the “Beyond the Manual” section, and only in that section. Note that that section of the forum may contain information that is incorrect and may violate your warranty, damage your Glowforge, and cause injury or death. That is the only place for discussion of topics like:
- Manual settings for materials
Oh no…what a sin you just did and right before Christmas? Now there are going to be fifty people that feel obligated to point out to you that you can’t ask about settings here. Wait…this forum is called “Made on a Glowforge”, but we can’t ask about how it was made on a Glowforge??? Doesn’t make sense to me. I often want to know about the settings people use on their projects and it makes perfect sense that we would do that when they post their project. I am interested too, so if you get a response, let me know. Hopefully, Santa Clause will over look this and bring you lots of Proof Grade materials…that you CAN ask about for some reason?
Good starting point for settings would be to choose a material from the list in the GF app, such as an iPhone if the object you are engraving is also anodized, and making note of the settings used on that. Adjust the settings as needed from experimenting.
In other words I bought two of the same knife figuring I would ruin the first one experimenting. With that in mind, I decided not to press my luck with a $200 Benchmade knife. 
Your mileage will be absolutely different with a different knife.
This is always a hard thing for new people to understand. Do a little searching on the forum and you’ll find many many posts that start out just as exasperated as yours and you’ll see there are good reasons for it.
GF made the decision to have all non-Proofgrade settings segregated to the Everything Else Beyond the Manual category. Apparently, their lawyers were concerned with corporate liability if they allowed settings for non-PG material to be posted in a company-sponsored forum. Their thought process was something along the line of the corporation being held responsible because they didn’t moderate the posts and test every setting & material combination posted by users.
Many of us think that’s an overstated fear, but it’s not our company or our lawyers and in the U.S. you can sue people for just about anything and often prevail even for what commonsense may suggest is silly. Just look at all of the warning labels on things (especially in California).
They do allow settings for non-PG material in the Everything Else Beyond the Manual category because no one in the company is reading those posts and has no official knowledge of what’s in there.
According to Dan, their lawyers weren’t thrilled with even that level of distancing themselves from the potential for users to post and/or use settings that cause fires or other damage but company management prevailed because it would have seriously limited the viability of the forum if the discussions weren’t allowed anywhere.
So it may not make sense to you, but it was for a valid reason. You can of course ignore them & your posts will be moved or chat on one of the many FB groups that routinely share settings (and perhaps coincidentally enough, pictures of Glowforge fires 
).
(Edited to correctly identify the section of the forum with non-PG settings allowed.)
Actually, it’s Beyond the Manual. That’s where they move support questions to do with non-PG materials as well.
Good catch. I’ve corrected my post.
A clever trick to get an extra knife 
Yes and since I nailed the first knife on the first try, I now have another knife laying around awaiting another occasion. 
Dinner?
Hi all, I just got asked to engrave a retirement K-Bar knife (blade) for my retiring General. The person ordering it sent me the link to amazon and its black. This is my first knife, so don’t want to mess it up. It looks black in the picture, but unsure if I can do it without ordering LBT100 (which on amazon has a 2 week shipping). Any advice or help please!
You need to open your own discussion in Beyond the Manual.
Custom material settings can not be discussed here.
Not asking for settings. Asking about if it’s ok to use it on black k-bar. Found good info on reddit.