Bookmarked, thanks!
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Just what I needed! Thank you for the encouragement!
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I am going to love everything in the catalog, I know. I just worry that I will be too critical of my own first steps after seeing such beautiful things fly so easily out of my Glowforge. I have always been a little insecure about designing from scratch, but I hope to get better!
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Everyone goes through that, Iām still going through it. We develop an eye for what looks good quicker than we can produce it so most people give up. DONāT! just keep designing things and making them. Sooner or later your abilities will catch up. At least that is what I am telling myself. 
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One more thing that would be cool to have would be a list of materials that are easy to work with for beginners, and where to find them.
In particular I want to learn more about different kinds of wood. I wonder, can you buy wood abroad and bring it to the US? Iām guessing certain types are regulated to protect the species.
Iām getting so excited! I was regretting making such a large purchase at a certain point, but not now! Iām so glad I jumped on here and asked for help!
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There are too many discussions to list. Do a search on laserable and then on laser safe. That should keep you busy for a while.
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Do you mean here on the forums or just in general?
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This is going to sound silly, but try to make the ugliest thing you can imagine. Hideous. Just awful. Donāt try to make it cool or anything. Just make the worst thing you can. Really apply yourself.
And then that fear goes away. Because you arenāt going to design anything worse than what you just did.
Seriously, donāt let the worry about not making beautiful things stop you from making anything. Youāll never get there if you donāt trip over all the ugly attempts along the way. Just accept that youāre going to design a lot of crap (everyone does. Everyone). Pretend you have to design 50 terrible things before you design something you really like. And thereās no getting around the 50. So you just have to get them out of the way.
And remember, just because you design something doesnāt mean you have to make it. But itās also totally fine to make things that arenāt masterpieces.
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Both, but at the time I meant here. Since we got going in late 2015 there has been quite a body of knowledge stored here, just a matter of searching for it.
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Hah! I guarantee, whatever you draw will be better than the first thing I draw when I get this thing. 
Doesnāt matter. Just have fun with it. (Matter of fact Iāll probably do quite a few little squares as my first creative effortā¦it worked for the 3D printingā¦took me from zero to 60 in a weekend.)
Youāll have years to enjoy it ahead of you, take your time getting acquainted and it can turn into a true long term love affair. 
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Wanāt sure of the answer about importing wood so I looked it up. Wow, the answer is really convoluted. Spent a few minutes looking through the official info and still donāt know the answer. Processed wood, meaning objects that are made of wood without bark seems to be OK. There are exceptions, some woods are protected such as Brazilian Rosewood, but most are OK. Plain wood is likely to need official certification that it has been kilned dried. Itās hard to understand the document. Either way screening might be required which will increase the import time. If you care enough, here is the document.
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Just remember you will always be outclassed by some astonishing expert. If your designs are perfect for your needs, then they are perfect. I know lots of mural painters who are amazing, but compared to Leonardo Davinci, wouldnāt cut it. Or my fatherās classmate in college who gave up golf, because he couldnāt beat the captain of the team (a young Arnold Palmer). Feel free to experiment, and donāt be discouraged by failure, learn from it (and otherās success and failures).
Heck Iāve failed more than I have succeeded in 3D printing, and some of those were spectacular, but through those failures I have become much more of an expert on materials and novel uses for them in 3D printing. I am never ashamed of failing, and heck post many of them, but I will say many of my novel projects have grown out of learning from a failure and noticing something cool at the margins of the problem.
Heck, Iāve used a laser cutter only once (well, not counting the industrial laser I wrote control software for in the late 80s that cut circular saw blade blanks out of steel, but thatās a different beast), so I will be learning too, and I expect to fail, and learn and fail and learnā¦
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We usually donāt learn how to do anything without a lesson on how not to do it first.
āFailure leads to understanding. Understanding failure leads to success.ā
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Probably why Iām only good at a very few things. Would rarely attempt anything unless was already sure of success. Itās a limitation of personality. Kept me from learning about a lot of interesting stuff.
Luckily understanding technologies has always been easy.
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3 things I can think of so far:
- Learn Illustrator or comparable. Photoshop (or comparable) is also very helpful
- Mentally prepare yourself for the fact that any cut/engrave on a material the first time is not going to work. Always do a test the first time on a new material. I suggest a gradient engraving test, and a kerf test for each material. Dont buy the exact amount you need, buy enough extra to run whatever tests you need first.
- Get some digital calipers if you dont have some. I use them every day.
Ive been using this as a first cut/engrave:
It will tell me how a raster engrave will come out on that material (the two rows are for masking and removed masking). It left some room to write the material, and it will tell me how the kerf came out. It just dawned on me to put a hole in the title area so I didnt have to have the original outer piece to know the kerf so I added that as well. Its very helpful in determining what values I should use in my images.
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A reflection of preparation I think.
My success usually followed crawling from the wreckage of the first attempt 
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- Yes!
- Yes!
- Yes!
All things I am learning as I go along. Thanks for the post! It is VERY helpful!
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True these days. But when younger, would boldly march into new experiments. Tried to make a laser in grade school (in the '60s) after reading an article about them by facing two of my momās makeup mirrors toward each other and shining a flashlight into them sideways. Realized the angles were all wrong, so I scratched a little hole in the back of one so I could get the flashlight rays more aligned with the mirrors. The pain of failure was only compounded by my Momās irritation with the damage to her mirror!
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I know there are different styles and such. I have a friend that will jump in with nil prep and take what he learned from the first permutation and build toward success.
I tend to prep a bit more but I still feel that if I have more than n 80% chance of success on the first try I am not pushing hard enough. Success, where you could have failed the first try is a GREAT confidence builder.
I know it is wrong of me, but I have gotten quite intolerant of people in my life that wonāt try something because they might fail.
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I did this for the first few projects until I saw how much material was wasted. Now I use scraps to test on, or the smallest possible piece to determine what the outcome of said experiment might be. Ive posted a few of my pre-engraves that were tiny, and that is because I didnt want to do a 3 hr engrave if it was going to end in disaster. Time and materials down the drain there.
Its always nice to have success the first time, but a small success is still a success and a big failure is much more of a pain than a calculated one.
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