I think the Glowforge can do this and be awesome at it! I love dovetails and i hope to be able to do so on the laser.
A very nice example of what greyscale engraving will allow us to accomplish.
Exactly. I’m really looking forward to using a lot of dovetails
If you don’t mind, I’m adding a direct link to the technique discussion.
Absolutely looking so forward to making dovetails on it. I just wish there was a way to cut the pins on something taller than 1.5 inches…
Yes, you can cut dovetails with the laser. I personally like the tabs.
Easy to make with Inkscape and one of the tabbed box maker plugins. I made a Munchkin box for a friend out of birch for Christmas. https://goo.gl/photos/rzjMyVP6kSN2KwKv5
This screen clipping from the dovetail discussion link above made it clear to me what shading is needed to get the sloped surfaces:
Tabbed joints (I call them box joints) are nice, but need glue to assemble in order to make them rigid. The shape of the dovetail prevents joint movement in all but one degree of freedom, making it nearly rigid without glue. The box in the example above was built without glue, according to the linked discussion!
Not always. If you measure your kerf beforehand, you make one side slightly bigger to accommodate the kerf, and viola! No glue. There’s an input for that.