Hi, I am really new with the GF and to be honest a bit overwhelmed with all the technical language so please be gentle. I work a lot with leather and my primary reason for purchasing the GF was to speed up the time of cutting patterns.
My question is, can someone share the settings for the “leather card keeper phone pocket” that can be purchased from the catalog. I would be using med natural leather proofgrade. I just really need help to see a starting point and confirm to myself that I didn’t just purchase a very expensive paper weight. If this is an inappropriate question or not the right plase to ask I apologues in advance. thanks in advance for any help
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Hey! Great to have you here!
The settings for cutting material is not depending on the shape, it is depending on the material. So it does not matter, if you are cutting the “leather card keeper phone pocket” ore someting else. As long as you use the the same material, the settings will be the same.
As you now plan to use proofgrade leather, the Glowforge should recognize it by itself, when you put it in the forge (with help of the qr-code and the built in camera). If that does not work, you can select the proofgrade-materials in the top left corner of the gfui. There should be a button “unknown” where you can select materials. If the GF has allready detected the leather, there will bi written the material.
After you choose your material there, you can go to each processing-step and change them to proofgrade (cut, engrave, score or ignore). That should be the whole magic.
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Thank you!!! So, If I am able to progress ( which right now seems doubtful
haha ) to using non proofgrade leather that’s when I will need to enter the settings?
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Thats right! For all proofgrade-materials the GF knows the settings allready 
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Also items purchased from the catalog have instructions which you will see by pressing the three dots in the blue heading above a opened catalog item in your GF that might help you get started. I’m new to this journey as well but know you’ll find lots of great help from the wonderful people here and that you will find that you’ve purchased a great tool for what you’re wanting!
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Thank you Anken ,
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No such animal.
I shall summon → @Jules ← who will give you the Matrix listings.
(actually surprised she has not materialized yet).
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thank you
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Keeper of all knowledge, obscure and otherwise.
Seriously, ask any question. If we know the answer, we are all happy to share.
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ROFL! Running late this morning…the water softener was recycling out of sequence and I had to wait for my shower. 
Hi @jrwms54, there are some tricks to cutting and engraving leather…give me five minutes and I’ll tell you everything I know about it. 
1. You want to be kind of gentle when you are engraving leather (and this applies to any leather - you want to just tattoo it and change the color of the surface finish, not burn through to the rough part of the leather). The Proofgrade leather comes pre-masked for cutting, but if you are engraving on the leather, the pre-set Proofgrade settings for engraving have to be a little strong to get through the masking. But the adhesive tends to get melted into the engrave, and that makes an uneven, charred looking engrave.
But when the time comes to cut the leather, you do want that masking on there - it keeps the smoke from staining the leather.
So even though it’s a little bit of extra work up front, I like to carefully peel back the masking from anyplace that needs to be engraved, engrave that area first, and then reapply the masking to the leather, while the leather is pinned down on the bed, for the cutting step. (It does save a lot of time overall in cleanup.)
That’s the main tip for working with leather - if you are cutting it, use masking of some kind, front and back. If you are engraving it, remove the top masking, or apply it after the engraving step.
Engraving Settings without Masking: (all leathers)
Power 2%, Speed:1000, LPI: 270-340
One pass for a brown engrave. Two passes for a dark, almost black engrave.
Cutting Settings with Masking:
Power 60-90%, Speed 220-240 (slower speed and higher power for thicker leather)
2. Second thing - you have to pin the leather down absolutely flat for good results. It’s also important to pin it down so that it doesn’t shift while you are messing with the masking during the engraving and cutting steps…so cut yourself a few of these Honeycomb Pins. (They’re the bees knees!)
That’s it on the leather…but there are some really great training materials for general use here if you want to get ahead of the game:
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Love this. For the cutting on masked, non-proofgrade (pretty thick), I’ve been doing more passes, power around 50%. (My art thread got 4 passes, 200, 50%, and was beautiful other than a few threads connecting.)
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I bow to you Queen Jules…you are my new best friend…Thanks so much !!!
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Chuckle! Have fun, and don’t stress too much over it…everyone stubs their toes a few times on every new material. They’re all different. (Just buy enough extra to run a couple of tests, or keep your scraps for a while.)
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I have been using this design…
as a fairly concentrated study of the results of a variety of settings. The design is setup for wood with the engrave at ten times the number full power but it could be any range you decide of either speed or power and then I keep them as a reference set when ever I am using that material.
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Hi @jrwms54!
Others have already helped you more than I could with leather (I don’t use it very much).
I just wanted to say Welcome! Feel free to ask all the questions you need! People here are very friendly.
Good luck!
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I have been doing a goodly bit with leather recently, and I never mind answering questions if I know the answer.
Thanks Jason,I may may be contacting you.
POOF… there is JULES
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