I am such a slacker. It too me 2-3 weeks to setup my Glowforge. I had to get the kids back to school and they just kept getting sick. I have finally named my Glowforge Fotoforge Glowinkle (yes, I panicked. I thought the names were just people naming them for their own reasons). The name is slowly growing on me. I printed these 4 tutorials on Monday. I am noticing alignment issues in the Chinese wave design. The rulers look great though!
I am currently printing a 3D photo engrave on prograde plywood. I see cutting is not an option at the moment. Do you recommend engrave first, cut later or is this something in the works?
And, on a side note, I love these little pieces! I am making a collection of these bits as well as my duct tape tears!.. (I’m an artist, not a hoarder. I promise!)
Correct – bitmap/rasters may only be engraved. Cutting requires vectors. If you want to cut out an engraved object, it will need a cutline drawn around it. Many methods for doing so here:
I’d love to see that once you finish! I think I’m over wood engravings. Now it’s time to move on to metal. Originally when I purchased this I was hoping to engrave on copper (like a photogravure), but that’s not possible. Now I think I will try some other sort of metal.
Don’t give up on the idea, I have been thinking on that, and while Glowforge cannot do copper directly, it will do 3D-engraves on wood and if thin copper was fastened to the engraving and rubbed thoroughly with the rounded end of a stick it would flow into the grooves and valleys of the engraving. A few finishing touches and you could say that Glowforge was a big part of the process.
I will have to get mine and do some research to know exactly what worked and what didn’t but the plan is sound I think.
This is an interesting idea, but not exactly what I had in mind. Photogravures are made with copper to essentially transfer a photo to a copper plate that can be inked and transferred back to paper. It sounds pointless, but the point of transferring a photo to a copper plate can have endless possibilities for hand manipulation. Originally, photogravures were and still are made with very toxic, cancerous materials, which is why a lot of people do not make them anymore.
I tried the 3D engrave feature. It is awesome looking, but not the same as a photogravure. I am slowly abandoning the photogravure for a new evolution. I feel my Fotoforge Glowinkle (my Glowforge) will have a huge part in whatever that evolution is.
My bane in life has been an inability to narrowly focus, or rather more I follow opportunity as it presents. If nobody wants “X” (or the tools are no longer availible) but “Y” is available to accomplish, I don’t lose interest in “X” but add “Y” to what I am interested in doing. I have pretty much run the Alphabet that way, and have found that every older thing has insight to add to the new one that others have not brought to it, and so it is with the copper.I have not focused on repossee much though I have done a lot with copper. but I can see the opportunity of having a robot doing the hard work, and how that would be a really nice result.
As for the printing you describe there has been a lot of efforts that the laser is uniquely qualified to do by engraving wood, marble and even tile to an amazing level of precision.
I have not gone down the printing path as I have mostly stayed in 3D so there may be subtleties that copper can do but similar Stainless Steel or marble cannot but that is beyond my knowledge to know it.
