Yeah, I’m close-ish to the border, so it’s a bit less of hassle to have things sent to my PO Box in Blaine, WA, which is literally 2 minutes away from customs.
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I just gave up and bought the linked ones from Amazon USA. What I should have done is just ordered a dozen (the $30 shipping cost would have been the same either way) and just offered to sell them to Canadian GF owners by dropping them in the mail. 
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Knowing Amazon they will charge you shipping for every item you buy, unless you ask directly to the seller.
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Nope. I ordered two, shipping remained the same… I suspect if I ordered a box of them, that might have changed accordingly.
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Same pair with more details on them + Prime if that matters to some. It mentions the wavelength you specified but I don’t know how to translate the laser jargon to know if it’s good to go. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BT6A8A0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_CjloybY7WXS2C
I’ll tell you that the specs are the same as the glasses I have. However, for lots of reasons I won’t advise anyone when it comes to safety.
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Does the colour of laser goggles/glasses matter? I notice on Amazon that they have green, blue and red.
Indirectly yes. You must get ones that filter out the correct wavelength for a CO2 laser, 10.6um. There are lots of other types of laser. I have three pairs to cover Glowforge, an IR laser diode and a blue laser diode and they are different colours.
But which would work for Glowforge?
usually clear. make sure it says it’s for co2 lasers and you’ll be fine.
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Yes the CO2 wavelength is so far off visible that there is no reason for them to be coloured.
When they are for lasers that are visible then they obviously have to be coloured and IR diode lasers are only just below red, so goggles for those likely filter out red as well.
The ones I buy come with optical density ratings, graphs of attenuation v wavelength and certification but they are very expensive. Probably overkill for a GF pro as the chance of signifiant light getting out the slot at waist height and into my eye is very slim. I got them because I might want to experiment and don’t want to take any risks with my eyesight.
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Cool, so i don’t really need to worry about getting any then. That’s great, thanks.
I recall Dan saying early on that he would do some research before he spent $80 on a pair of plastic glasses.
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As far I as I know, glass and acrylic are opaque to CO2 lasers… once i get my k40 back up and running maybe ill do a little test to see how opaque they really are
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I didn’t recommend not getting any, I just think expensive certified ones like I bought are over the top when operating a GF pro privately. Cheap ones are probably adequate.
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How are you going to do that? Do you have something that will detect 10.6um IR?
stick a piece of glass/acrylic in the beam path and something behind it. paper/my hand
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And if that’s the case, anyone wearing normal glasses should be ok.
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Yeah. The glowforge and other lasers only have a glass/acrylic lid on them. One would think that this is sign enough that these materials are substantial enough to prevent any damage.
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I suspect acrylic and glass will melt / crack when hit by the unfocused 40W beam for any length of time.
Goggles are rated with optical densities that are many orders of magnitude but a high power laser would destroy them pretty quickly, so to measure the attenuation they must need a very sensitive detector, and a low power laser or a very fast detector and a short pulse.
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