I don’t think I enabled the Glow Forge to read the Proof Grade. As you can see from the photo, the print is mostly burned and the cut is not cut thru.
To me it looks like your lens is upside down. The lens inside your printer head should be facing up like a bowl. You can read about it here:
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Definitely not in focus. Remove the lens. Clean it. Insert it again cup side up.
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Thanks guys. Working better. Now to figure out some other settings. I want to burn my logo on cork coasters for promotional giveaways.
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It does seem very odd that your lens should be upside down on your very first cut.
As I am the designer of the piece I would recomend never using any of the Medium plywoods. It is designed for light plywood specificly or any of the Medium Acrylics.
The middle part of all the medium plywoods is MDF which would be very problematic for the flower buds above the head of the humming bird. I did a lot to strengthen them but MDF would not have enough strength.
For the same reason I would even be leery of light basswood as that would be pushing it. Light maple or cherry would be stronger and it is light maple that is recommended. and there is also a photo of the blue acrylic. An earlier version of it in blue acrylic sits above my head as I type where those flower buds did not work and fell off.
As a first ever print it is probably not the best to start with. The first thing is to fix the material very well so it cannot move even if you push it. Then with everything set to ignore except the outermost cut you run set focus and move the image for the last time and hit print. Wnen the cut is done, you can use tape to lift the piece out and remove the masking on both sides and place it back.
At that point you set that outer cut to ignore and the image part engrave to SD which should be the default and the third area to either cut or engrave. Cut looks best but can make issues on the other side. You do not want to fool with moving the image even if it looks a bit off.
The next step is a bit tricky. You open the lid and remove the piece and the interior pieces that were cut should fall out. You then flip the piece over and put it back in the hole and go back to the computer.
Being careful not to move the image, you want to use CTRL-A to highlight it and you will see a white rectangle with 5 marks and the middle (3rd) one is a flip your image on its center horizontally. So now the hummimgbird is flipped also and after putting the interior cut on ignore, you run the engrave for the last time.
It should now be as you see in the catalog. I believe I called for the skill to be Intermediate or at least experienced but it is set to beginner. The process I laid out here is the one laid out in the catalog description but with a bit more specificity.
It would help best to make yourself a bunch of bed pins to hold everything tightly…
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Cork is fabulous for engraving, hardly takes any power at all. It is, OTOH, really hard to cut so yay for already having pre-cut coasters!
You can find settings in the Beyond the Manual section here on the forum, and might I suggest a cardboard jig to be absolutely sure your designs end up perfectly centered!
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