If you haven’t seen my previous announcement, I was offered a Pre-Release Basic Glowforge! After mulling over my unworthiness for about 20 nanoseconds I quickly accepted. Email arrived on Monday night but I didn’t see it until Tuesday morning. Imaging my excitement when they said I could have the machine next day!
It arrived Wednesday March 29 by FedEx Priority overnight which means delivery by 10:30am. I don’t know if this will be also true for production units but thought folks might like to know.
Setup was easy and straightforward. The machine is a work of art! Oh, and my Glow button is also centered (no April fools).
The Proofgrade material that arrived is just gorgeous! They sent me 1/8" maple hardwood and plywood, some maple and walnut veneers, 1/8" acrylic, and some leather. As far as I can tell (it’s all masked) it’s as wonderful as you’ve been hearing. Certainly the stuff I’ve used so far is. I love the semigloss finish of the woods–it’s exactly right.
So the first order of the day is to do the suggested projects:
- Founders ruler
- Customizing a Glowforge design template
- Creating a design in software
Without further ado, I give you the Founders Ruler:
Also shown is the wooden pendant design to which I added an engraved cat (image downloaded from Google Images). Interestingly, the ruler design came in with the sunburst symbols set to cut, not engrave. I notice that others’ rulers are engraving that part. Still tweaking I guess.
Next project was to customize a Design template. I chose the plaque design–I love the Art Deco look of it. I have a little plaque in my house with a phrase I like, so I photocopied it, held it up to a window (I have a light box but it’s upstairs and I’m too excited to go up there and get it) and hand traced the design on paper. (I could have put the plaque in the Glowforge to trace but it was a serif font and I wanted sans). With the plaque design in place, I clicked on “+ Add Artwork,” chose “Trace Bed Image,” and put the paper in the GF and traced the design, as you have seen @dan do many times. My traced image was too big for the plaque but it was easy to resize it. Also added the cat image (you can do multiple adds), chose cut and engrave options, and off we go:
I was VERY pleased by how it came out! Very easy process and the GF performs like a dream. My venting isn’t perfect as I haven’t taken the time to seal very well around the window, but the smell is not bad at all.
The third project is one I will do a separate posting of as it was a little more involved.
One other thing: I also tried cardboard (single ply, not corrugated) and it worked great! The GF is a little too powerful at this time to score or engrave as my fastest and least powerful settings still cut through. One note about the leafy cut in the image below: I created it on my iPad and sent it directly to the Glowforge–it didn’t go through a computer (I’m running MacPro with Yosemite) at all.
More to follow soon!
