You have no idea how exciting this is. I mean I could use a scanner, phone camera or other device… But this is yet another inventive way to use the GF!
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It’s also a great new use for the term “screen burn-in”.
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As a bit of a nerd… I laughed.
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I’ve been using laser cutters and CNC for 5 years now. I’ve learned quite a bit about purchasing materials. Stay away from all of the home improvement stores for plywoods. Most of their plywood is pretty trashy (at least from my experience). Look for a commercial lumber yard. If you live in a medium size city you should be able to find one.
I can pick up sheets of 1/8" baltic birch (true 60"x60" 3 ply) for $11.25 a piece (cheaper the more you buy). Run it through my table saw and I’ve got blanks for the laser for a few bucks a piece. I can also get 1/8" mdf for $7.95 a piece (49" x 97"). This is stuff is great for testing ideas or single use items and super cheap.
It’s also not that hard to dial in a laser for a material and I’m sure the forums are going to have plenty of people that post their settings.
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Where do you get your MDF from? Lumberyard as well?
Yes. I do need to head to a real lumber yard. Thanks for the advice from experience.
Same lumber yard. They have lots of different faced plywoods, dimensional lumber, and hardwoods as well.
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One second, I have to take a call on my 1/4" plywood… blast
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My apologies, it was poorly worded on my part. 
To rephrase… I am SUPER excited to be getting the high quality Proofgrade materials, especially the wood as I plan to be doing quite a lot in that medium.
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Right now we’re starting with materials - we’ll see what people are excited about, though!
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Will Proofgrade materials be masked on both sides with the coded material data?
And if so, Will there be a human-readable marking to identify color/material without peeling up a corner on one side? It could be difficult to differentiate between similar colors or materials if you had a pile of various 12"x20"x1/8" sheets all masked white on both sides.
[edit: meant to direct this to @dan ]
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I’d definitely be interested in seeing laser safe masking in the Proofgrade catalog!
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Would white Con-Tact work for this?
Not the vinyl stuff, that would be bad. I think he was talking about something more like masking tape, (or paper-based application tape / transfer tape like TransferRite )
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Thanks. Man, I really need to bone up on what types of materials can be put through a laser without killing me. Here I am just, “La dee dah! I will cut ALL THE THINGS!”
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In Canada, I have gone to Windsor Plywood in the past, they have a fair number of stores around the country. Plus they are nice enough to keep some off-cuts for people to have as samples.
haha, my pleasure. I wish we could just cut all the things! Vinyl and PVC and emit harmful HCL when lasered, very bad for both you and your machine. Some other types of plastic we shouldn’t mess with because of melting etc. A good starting point for that is here and then this thread
I think this is the most recent thread about masking tape stuff, and this one has some good info too, including where some people like to buy thiers.
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That is the plan.
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