Hi -I have a glowforge aura and just signed up for the premium membership. I do cannot afford to buy the glowforge wood - how will i know what to set the glowforge on if I use wood I get off Amazon? I’m worried about that…new to Glowforge; have made a few things but only with the sample that came with the machine…
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Glowforge has settings for many standard things it does not sell including thick paper and cardboards. It also sells many things the Aura cannot cut but the IR machines can.
More problematic are the things that Aura Should Not try to cut. High among those is what would otherwise look like cheap wood but would drive you up a wall as they are so dirty that you could not finish a cut before the zero point started wandering. Even normal cutting will need to have the rails cleaned before running the next cut.
Anything made of glue and sawdust or wood chips (MDF) is not recommended as it is so dirty. Sometimes the MDF is between two layers of real wood, still no good. There is stuff called Revolution Plywood that is a bit thick (3/16) and has a few bad places in it, but for low price that you can still cut it is about the lowest you can find.
Better are the 1/8" and 1/16" woods, but don’t be surprised to find problem places in some of it. Real wood or plywood where “made for laser” and less than 1/8" thick are key words.
For most plastic that is not Acrylic you need to avoid and any acrylic transparent to blue cannot be cut, so going there will take a fair amount of rabbit hole diving before trying.
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Moving this to “beyond the manual” as any advice not laid out by glowforge needs to be here.
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Thank you for your response; I really appreciate it!
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Ditto to what @rbtdanforth said, I’ll add that acrylic is pretty standard across all industries. You’re look for cast acrylic (if it’s marked for a laser it’ll most likely be cast), and with the 
you need to avoid clears, whites, and blues. Keeping that in mind you can get it from nearly anywhere 
If you can find Baltic Birch plywood (not just Birch, but specifically Baltic) that’s made with a wood core and 1/8" should do just find in your Aura. You can look online, but also if there are any cabinet shops in your area they’ll often have “cast offs” that they’ll sell for cheap. I once got a whole box at a Habitat for Humanity ReStore for only a few bucks a sheet! I’m still working my way through that.
Keep in mind that one of the reasons the Proofgrade 
is comparatively expensive is that they literally guarantee it’ll work. If you use the correct settings and it doesn’t work, they’ll replace the sheet. If you’re using random work you’re going to need to spend time figuring out what settings work (BTW, my default for any wood to start with is the Basswood settings, it works 75% of the time), and there’s always the chance that there will be voids, or they’ve used glue that can’t be cut by a laser, or a dozen other things that cost either time or money. Something to keep in mind, especially if you’re planning on trying to do any sort of commercial venture (though the is definitely not designed for commercial use!)
The one thing that it excels it (it and the Spark) is papercraft. Cutting cards, and layered art, and foldable things using cardstock is an incredible rabbit hole to fall into, and it’s the best machine for that!
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