Have tried for a few hours trying to find the best settings for Cherry and Maple hardwoods (non-proofgrade materials). I am new to this so I may be my graphics or something else. Is there a good “general” manual setting for engraving into 3/4" thick maple and cherry? Thanks in advance.
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For engraving, the thickness of the material should not be a huge factor unless you want really deep engraves. I suggest you start with the engrave settings for proofgrade maple and cherry hardwood, make sure you have the material raised up to the proper level without the crumb tray and that your focus is set properly.
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So the glowforge has “auto-focus”. Should I need to worry about focus settings?
Engraving anything over 1/2 inch thick is a problem as it makes a difference what you use to support it without the Crumb tray, Cutting them will best be done with a scroll saw as getting the Glowforge to cut even a half inch is problematic much less 3/4".
The best bet is to make a small :“standard candle” design that you can save and reference in all of your work. In all cases your experience will vary with both the individual piece of wood and which model of Glowforge you have. Except for cutting 3/4" wood . that would make a mess no matter what you did
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So as of right now, I am only engraving. Cutting will come later and once I get to that point, I would most likely be using much thinner material than 3/4".
I started using the Glowforge before the auto focus was totally reliable, so I may be stuck in the past. As long as the surface of your wood is within the .001 to .05" focus range I guess you can just let the autofocus make the call. For arranging the artwork, the manual focus height helps the camera focus properly for visual alignment - I think, but other more knowledgeable users may correct my assumption on this. The auto focus doesn’t measure until you hit the print button. Also, some engraves are improved with slightly out of focus settings.
I forgot to say Welcome - so, welcome to the forum. One of our most skilled and helpful forum members posted about engraving on proofgrade maple hardwood and her results. I suggest you give her post a look. Grandparents Photo on PG Maple Hardwood
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As there are both cherry and maple proofgrade settings, I’d start there. There are other settings at: GF Settings Google Sheet though I don’t see cherry there.
I also find that comparing the stats of a wood to one that you have settings for can be helpful. Based on this Janka chart cherry and maple are very similar hardness so settings for one is probably similar to the setting for the other
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