Lovely 
I’d suggest a back so items don’t get pushed too far - and possibly a drawer so smaller items don’t get lost - ooh, and attach a piece of metal somewhere so you can store magnets (f you’re going to use them)
Can’t wait to see what you do with your new Forge!
Do you use magnets for anything in particular in operating your’s? Or are you talking about if I am using them as a material? Not sure if people use like magnet jigs on the crumb tray or anything.
Magnets make great hold-downs, especially the old hard-drive magnets that have a piece of steel on the back so they are only magnetic toward the tray and not up toward the air-assist fan
Between the Honeycomb bed holdown pins, magnets, and (if your material is crazy light) repositionable spray adhesive there’s nothing you can’t control
Wow, that is some nice upcycled trash. My poor glowforge is living in the slums.
Some people use magnets to secure their material to the crumb tray. I screwed a cheap metal bracket to the side of my table to store the magnets. A few months ago glowforge enabled the air assist fan sensor to determine if it is stuck. When the air assist fan passes over a very strong magnet it may stop the fan and the glowforge throws an error. This stops the laser head in place and effectively cancels the print thereby ruining what you were doing. I’ve heard that they tweaked their sensing algorithm to try and minimize this. All I know is I’ve been careful since I encountered it and haven’t had an issue since.
@caribis2 @deirdrebeth At what point would you need to use hold downs? Is this primarily with paper and thin material? The laser shouldn’t be putting an actual force on the material if my understanding serves me right, but i’m assuming the air assist fan will blow things away like the wind?
If you are really into paper you are correct in that it will blow around like it’s caught in a twister. However, a Seklema mat, or a piece of plywood and some repositionable spray are best for paper. The strong magnets are for keeping things flat. You get much, much better results when your material is flat against the crumb tray. They will take the warp out of plywood, wood and that bump in the leather that refuses to flatten out. Their other use is for holding a jig in place.
one reason you would use magnets or hold down pins is when the material is not perfectly flat. very common with wood, in particular. the flatter it is, the more in focus your cuts and engraves will be. the more warped it is, the more likely your cuts won’t go all the way through the material .
I use hold downs for smaller pieces of wood and acrylic just in case the air assist wants to shift things. Also if I’m flipping a cut piece over to engrave the back or to hold a jig in place.
@eljefe4’s honeycomb pin design works really well.
Gorgeous woodworking. Post pics when the 
is resting comfy on the new table.
Will do just got my shipment email about an hour ago! Coming Tuesday!
*edit I should really just drive from California to Texas to pick it up.
I use hold downs on almost all cuts, just in case the cut doesn’t go through all the way. It holds the material in place while I test the cut. If the cut isn’t all the way through, I can re-run the job without worrying about possibly having accidentally shifted something while testing the cut
Feels like Christmas as a kid right?
exactly, I am already designing things hoping it will work the way I think after reading and watching a bunch of tutorials but I cant test yet!
This is a beautiful table. Very practical. I don’t know how many people have done what I have done, but since I have a metal top to my Glowforge table, I put an anti-fatigue mat on the top to put the Glowforge on. It is vibration and sound dampening and keeps the Glowforge in one place. Yours seems to be pretty solid though, much more than mine.
I found that uploading the design to the UI, I can see how the laser sees it. That very often has led me back to the design program to modify it correctly for the machine. Works best when we are both on the same page.
Me. This. So many times. I don’t keep track. I think it’s contributed to my learning curve, though…it’s a good ‘mock test’.
Ooh - I likey!
It’s a fun time … Preparing your space, buying materials and items which are handy to have nearby.
Nice table!
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