Any suggestions on taking masking off the proofgrade leather?
Gorilla tape
Also - press it down firmly to get good contact, and peel it back quickly and smoothly. In a perfect world, you want to lift as much of the masking as possible in one pass. Multiple passes means more chances to muck up the leather surface.
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Depending on the design, I’ve also had very good results using plastic razor blades (https://www.amazon.com/Ehdis-Visibility-Plastic-Scraping-Windshields/dp/B01HLWB0BM/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1514949107&sr=8-4&keywords=plastic+razor+blade)
I tend to use non-proofgrade leather, applying my own masking, and it works well.
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What do you use, and what kind of masking if you don’t mind. Thx!
Two of the main sources for me are Springfield Leather (http://springfieldleather.com/) and Tandy Leather (http://tandyleather.com/). I use “veg tanned” leather of various thickness. Sold by “ounce” which equates to thickness. For example, 8 ounce leather is approximately 1/8". (5-6 ounce is the thickest proofgrade sold by Glowforge.)
(edited) Both of these sources sell leather scrap that can be a good way to try out various weights, then buy by the square-foot or whole pieces when you have a project that needs a particular size.
For masking, you want to look for paper transfer tape used in the vinyl sign business. TransferRite 582U is an example (https://www.amazon.com/TransferRite-Ultra-582U-Medium-Transfer/dp/B01D3UZLIO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1514951598&sr=8-2&keywords=transferrite+ultra). I usually apply to front and back. One side of the leather is smooth and the paper adheres pretty well, a little less so on the rear which is rough “suede”, but still keeps discoloration down to a minimum.
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just cut my first leather project. the catalog iphone 6 case. i used a mix of scraps from saddleback leather (for the outside) and medium PG (for the inside). the saddleback leather i had to run two passes on to get a clean cut w/o burning, but it cut well and my masking (the same 582U @shollg listed above) went on and came off easily.
the PG masking was a PITA to get started to peel off. it came off fine once it got started, but the edges were a bitch to start. gorilla tape was useless. i had to use tweezers to try to pry a gentle corner up.
This is atypical IME. Usually it comes off very easily, but detailed weeding can be a chore (hence the Gorilla tape). The only time I’ve encountered what you’re describing was with what I suspect was an older piece of PG leather. It seemed like the masking had sort of fused to the leather, which made me wonder if the masking on the leather is possibly affected by time or intense temperature changes.
Not trying to negate your experience, so much as suggesting that it may have been a wonky piece. From what I’ve seen thus far, that’s not normal for PG leather.
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Maybe? It was actually two different pieces of PG, so I had the problem on 2 of the three pieces they gave me.
But they’re the only PG pieces I’ve tried.
Yikes. You might want to send a note to support about that. At least, that’s what I did when I encountered this, since it was drastically different than my experience with other PG (and non-PG) leather. Not an expected or desirable result.
no, it was mildly annoying. i was able to get it off, it just took some work to get it started w/o damaging the leather surface.
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I had same experience as you on the PG that came in the starter kit. I was thinking some dynamite for next cut since I did hurt the leather getting it started in one spot. I haven’t tried again.
I’m glad to hear it is probably atypical behavior 
The masking I use for woods, from sign warehouse - forgot the brand, adheres very poorly to the non-PG leather I’ve been using so weeding isn’t the issue.
Practice and work. Peeling the masking where it is intact/mostly intact is just fingers or a plastic blade, though it holds much harder than needed. Engraved areas are trickier. I’ve had success just rubbing my thumb down the area and it kind of peels/rolls away. There is also gorilla tape, though I’ve had that mar the surface of the leather itself. Plastic blades, maybe. I figure it’s mostly what works best for you and a given piece of leather/kind of work done on it. For the few pieces of leather I bought at Tandy, I’ve not masked it at all and gotten some nice results provided I had good settings. (I used proofgrade settings as a starting point.