So I don’t have to weed 500 individual pieces once the puzzle is cut! The first mask comes off in one large piece, the second comes off in as many rows as I have (usually about 10 rows fit in the forge).
I cut all my pieces out, then tape them all up with blue tape while they are still in place in the glowforge. Then I lift the entire set of pieces out of the machine and peel the blue tape away on my workbench, which takes the masking with it. Basically it peels all the masking off in one shot.
I mask both sides of my material, so I do it to both sides. I make a “blue tape sandwich”, which is like so: Blue tape - masking - material - masking - blue tape. So I guess the full process is:
- Mask both sides
- Cut parts
- Apply a layer of blue tape to the top of your cut pieces (Don’t move the material yet)
- Pull entire tape monster out of the machine
- Flip material on workbench, apply blue tape to the other side.
- Pull the blue tape off of both sides, leaving you with hundreds of masking-free parts.
It might be even easier to use higher-tack masking instead of blue tape, basically you just need something that will adhere to the first layer of masking more than the first layer of masking adheres to the material. The plus side for blue tape are easy availability and some flexibility/precision in terms of how much you use.