I am having a terrible time trying to engrave on thicker hardwood. I am a basket maker and bought this almost exclusively to engrave on wood bases that we make ourselves. Most of the bases are 5/8" thick walnut, ash or cherry.
I was under the impression that I could use material up to 2" thick. Which is why I bought this machine. However the settings only let me go to 1/2" ??? My designs are coming out great on very thin test pieces but when I try to change to thicker material it is not coming out. It is blurry and hardly cut.
If anyone can shed some light on this I would really appreciate it. I work full time and don’t have hours a day to dink with this thing. 
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You can use/engrave on material up to 2" thick, but you can’t cut 2" material.
Are you using set focus or inputing the height, which is where you are being limited to 1/2"?
Remove the honeycomb bed, and support your material so that it is at the appropriate height to work on.
The machine has a working range of about 1/2", from the top of the bed. The bed is aprox. 1.5" from the floor of the machine, so if you remove it, you can work on material up to 2" thick. Anything 0.5-1.5" will need to be supported to get the surface into that working range.
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Right, not trying to cut only engrave.
Inputing the thickness. Not sure about what “set focus” is.
Thanks! How do you measure the “appropriate height”? I’m really new, sorry.
I amended my post - 1.5-2.0" from the base/floor of the machine.
I will try that thank you!
Set focus is under the little gear icon on the right side. I have been using it since it became a new feature and it really works great. No more measuring material. You just need to make sure your material is from 0 - 1/2" of the laser head.
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This little tool allows you to verify that the surface of your material is in the “working range” without a bunch of measuring, but it does require your material surface to be flat and that the tool can get up against an edge or two to measure it:
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This visual might help you understand where your material needs to be. As long as you get it above the height of the tray and below laser, you can use “set focus” and it will measure things for you. You just need to get it in the right range first.
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I’m so sorry you ran into trouble with the material thickness! It looks like you’ve gotten some great advice from our other community members. Did the suggestions help get your print working the way you want it?
Yes that seems to have fixed the problem entirely.
I’m glad you resolved it! I’m going to close this thread. If you run into any other trouble, please start a new topic, or email us at support@glowforge.com. We’re here to help!