Weekly Highlights for the week of 11-DEC-16

[jacobturner]

These are the posts about things made by Beta and Pre-Production users which are worth highlighting:

More acetal belt buckles

I made a couple more buckles today. I wanted to see if there was any difference between the white and the black acetal. The only thing I really noticed was that the “smoke stains” on black were more visible as seen here. [image] since the debris from cutting seems to be white, it shows up pretty well on a black surface. It does just wash off easily with some water though. This was a belt for my nephew. [image] I couldn’t leave my nieces out though [image] Here are some closer shots of…

ProofGrade Projects and Pre-Release Glowforge Living Hinge Photo Holder

This is on ProofGrade 1/8" Maple Plywood, the same material that the award plaque is out of. The print time lasted 33 minutes for a 3 1/2 by 4 " photo holder with a living hinge. The bulk of the print was spent in a deep engraving that would hold the photo. [image] It was fine that the print was a half hour, that allowed me to start a live stream. I know folks were eager to learn that MakForge was back in business. There are printed instructions embeded in the design which makes me appreciate…

ProofGrade Projects and Pre-Release Glowforge Design Catalog 12-piece puzzle

I wanted to put the acorn pic on the puzzle. First test the acorn pic as engraving: [image] With masking on using a small part of the picture. [image] Sample or test engrave with masking removed. A medium bristle brush would help to brush off. I’m starting this topic with a picture of a testing of the photo engraving. I opened the acorn picture in GIMP, cropped it to a smaller area, to make a square 1 7/8" by 3", native resolution, saved it as a *.png. Using the Glowforge UI, I placed it…

Better get Kraken

I’d found some inspirational designs on pinterest that I liked over the past year or so and knew I wanted to make a similar design for something. Eventually I came up with a reasonable excuse, the door to my computer room keeps falling closed, and got to work on it. I roughed out a few sketches and then got started in Illustrator building the basic shapes. The pathfinder “unite” tool was heavily used as I took tentacle shapes and added them with a bunch of ovals to give them suckers. [image] …

ProofGrade Projects and Pre-Release Glowforge Acrylic Pendant

One of the designs in the catalog that is available to me is the acrylic pendant. This would work with hardwood too. I chose the standard size and added a 300dpi bitmap of my initials using the darker engrave. The acrylic is pristine. It’s an amazing material that just comes alive in the light. I thought I had cleaned it well enough but in the LEDs you can see the dust. This item would look good on a keychain. The light score did an wonderful job in scoring the wavy lines around the circumfere…

ProofGrade Projects and Pre-Release Glowforge mini acrylic LED sign

[image] Of all the cool things one can do with a Glowforge, I think the one project that will instantly justify the purchase to anyone curious is an edge-lit acrylic sign. We have had many examples on the forum. I was inspired by @smcgathyfay, and with her blessing came up with my own. I had the LED strips, an old USB cables and an extra 5v AC/DC adapter. The only real challenge to this was getting the slot for the acrylic dialed in for the top layers. The acrylic is labeled 1/8" but is thinne…

Baby's First Christmas Ornament

Hi all. I am excited to share a project I completed this week: a ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ ornament for my newest niece. [image] Over the years I have given a hand painted First Christmas ornament to each of my nieces and my nephew (now totaling 7). The previous ornaments were each painted on a glass ball. They started out with tasteful muted colors, and morphed into super sparkly glitter balls as my own kids got old enough to have input into the design. Thanks to the Glowforge, my newest niec…

A wallet by my Seahawks fan of a wife.

My wife got her hands on the Glowforge for the first time the other night and made herself a wallet.[image][image]