Not Cutting on Walnut/Maple

Cutting some Maple and Walnut medium hardwood today. Neither one of my keychains cut through all the way on either material. Cut only goes through maybe 90%.
I only have one more piece of Walnut and Maple, so I really don’t want to keep wasting material.
I have cut this same file on Medium Basswood numerous times with no problems. Any help would be appreciated.
I peeled back the masking on the Walnut to show the faintest outline of the cut barely showing through on the backside. Front side appears fairly good, it just isn’t going all the way through.


Your best bet is to get in the habit of making sure the cut goes through before moving your material or artwork. If a piece of tape applied to the item doesn’t lift it out, you can repeat the cut to insure success. You can also adjust the speed down slightly for an item. Also, are you certain you selected the hardwood from the material menu and not walnut plywood?

The most important things are 1. Make sure all of your optics are clean 2. Make sure the material is held flat to the honeycomb tray and 3. Use the set focus tool.

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Click on Support, Troubleshooting, Cut Didn’t Go Through Material

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I’m not sure how zoomed in that is, but the cuts look suspiciously wide to me. Check your lens and make sure it’s not in upside-down.

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I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve hit this snag, and I apologize for the material that may have been wasted during your most recent prints. I’d like to take a look at a specific print, and some images of your optical components.

Could you please do the following?

  1. Turn off your Glowforge, then turn it back on
  2. We included an extra piece of Proofgrade Draftboard with your materials shipment for troubleshooting. Place Proofgrade Draftboard in the bed and load the Gift of Good Measure design.
  3. Set the score and engrave steps to ‘ignore.’ Print the Gift of Good measure using the default settings. Allow the print to finish.
  4. When the print finishes, leave the lid closed and wait until the fans stop and the picture of the bed updates.
  5. Check the completed print:
    • If the Gift of Good Measure fails to cut, please let us know the date and time of the print
  • If the Gift of Good Measure cuts successfully, please try another print of the design you saw the issue with, and let us know the results.
  1. If the issue still occurs, please let us know the date and time of the finished print.

Once this has been completed, let us know! Also, I would like to check over just a few more things. Could you do the following for me?

Please send photos of all your cleaned optical components, with special attention to any damage you might find:

  • Both windows
    • The printer head window, on the left hand side of the printer head
    • The laser window on the inside left of the Glowforge
  • The printer head lens
    • Both sides of the lens, top and bottom
  • The mirror inside the printer head
  • The bottom of the printer head

Once we have those pictures, and the results of the test print, we’ll follow up with next steps.

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I second @geek2nurse, the cut should be almost hairline. After you check @MarcM’s recommendations, print the Gift of Good Measure as the test for them. It has cuts, scores, and engraving so support can see all aspects of the machine’s operations.

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Thank you for the advice. Hadn’t thought about using tape to lift it out :thinking: As for speed, I’m not real knowledgable on speed settings and adjustments yet, so I’m guessing a slower speed cuts deeper? As for the selection of wood, it selected it automatically and I always double check that it registered right. Many times it wont scan the barcode and I have to enter it manually. Ugh. But this particular cut was was set for Walnut Hardwood. All great tips to add to my arsenal. Thank you :slightly_smiling_face:

@MarcM
@geek2nurse
I am trying to reprint the project. When I hit the print button, GF says “these are not the recommended settings for this material”. Ummm, this is the second time I have tried cutting Walnut Hardwood and I haven’t changed the cutting or engraving speed at all. What is the speed supposed to be? It is showing 1000 FULL currently on the Engrave box. Also shows 270 lines per inch and 1 pass for SD Graphic.
(I should add that I first cut the GOGM on draftboard first and it cut fine.)

I have a pro, and the cut setting is 210 full power.

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I have NO idea how mine got changed? Lol. I exited the program, refreshed the screen, restarted my upload and now it says 189. That sounds about right. I know there is a bit of difference in speed from the Plus to the Pro models. I will try to see if it will let me print now. My main concern is :fire:

Okay, so it did the same thing as originally. It looks like it cut ALMOST all the way through. It won’t come up with a piece of tape. Upon closer inspection, I decided to go ahead and gently snap the wood away from th eedge of the key chain. It was so close to cutting all the way though, as shown in the photos. You can just make out the outline of the keyring hole on the back side of the board. Also included a photo of the second keychain still intact so you can see just how close it was to cutting through completely.

I appreciate you attempting to work through some additional test prints, but I’m sorry to hear that you’re still running into trouble.

In my previous post, I outlined a specific test print I’d like to review to ensure your Glowforge is performing within specification. Were you able to perform this print?

Also, If you could work through the instructions I provided for taking pictures of your cleaned optical components, we’ll review this information, and provide the next best steps to get you back up and printing correctly.

Thank you!

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It’s been a little while since I’ve seen any replies on this thread so I’m going to close it. If you still need help with this please either start a new thread or email support@glowforge.com.