The stingray skin got me thinking. Spent most of my life on the Chesapeake and it’s tributaries. I still walk the beaches several times a month. Millions of Miocene era fossils and shells embedded in the cliffs. Really easy to pick up ancient shark teeth (black). I’ve found some as long as 5". Extinct clam and oyster shells, an occasional whale or dolphin vertebra, etc. Add to that all the modern oyster and clam shells. Tide smoothed pebbles of every type and color imaginable. Smooth sea glass. A dried horseshoe crab shell might be cool to try if I can find one small enough. Materials like this often find themselves into my wife’s art. All this stuff is laserable. All I have to do is be creative.
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This is some sort of fungi that grows on dead locust trees here in the mountains. One one side it looks like tree bark and the bottom flat smooth side has the feel of leather after drying. The wife often paints scenes on these for the locals. The one in this pic is about 10" across. Might be cool to cut one off and try lasering an image.
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This is so fascinating and intriguing to me…not so much in a ‘could I laser this’ sense as much as the thought that you have so many cool things nearby. Things that you can look for and collect. I am enamored of archaeology and related fields anyway. Your resources are very rich, indeed.
Pretty new here…been stalking the forum the last few days and getting excited about all the cool things my husband and I are going to be able to make with our Glowforge!
This could take Gingerbread house making to a whole new level! Another idea I’ll have to put on the list to make.
I was just thinking about how an artist conk would look laser engraved. We have lots of conks growing on my island. Also thinking there could be some really cool stuff done with shells and beach rocks. And leaves, I think it could be really fun to laser images into leaves, press and dry them.
Haha, want us to send you some? Glowforge special scents. 
@marmak3261 Ah, no way! I totally agree, Pearl Street is the perfect venue for this kind of thing.
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… and isn’t SketchUp is based in Boulder? I really miss Colorado.
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Oooh, ooh, I just remembered that I have a ton of really beautiful antique shell buttons. They have a matte surface that I think would engrave really beautifully.
@jbv yeah, looks like it…! I know Trimble bought it from Google (who bought it from the Boulder creators). Trimble is in Superior but still close to home. If you’re ever back in CO, hit me up and maybe we can do some glowforge collabs 
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First “exotic” material for me will be hardened gelatin sheets. In historic process photography we use a process of soaking paper (or other flexible stuff) in thin solutions of gelatin then hardening it in formalin. The stuff gets rock hard after a few pases, and the more skilled folks can make and harden the sheets w/o the paper substrate so you get pure hardened gelatin sheets.
Traditionally it’s used for a printing process called the carbon print, but it could have some really interesting use in an etched form.
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that’s exactly what I plan to do from the 100+ year old redwood from my house i’m currently remodeling! super excited to be able to see and share designs!
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Glass dust? Tell me more…
My idea is to crush blue /green/brown glass with a hammer into dust. Then put it on a metal tray and then into the GF and run tests to melt thin lines of it into shapes leaving some / most unmelted. I did this as a kid with my Fresnel lens (12"x12") which would melt them into little spheres. But with that method I could not “make” anything… think glass fillagree 
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How are you planning to deal with the air assist, trying to blow your glass dust away?
Oh dang, that is a very good point :-/ Any ideas?
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not really, we don’t actually know the airflow on the assist, so something that would vaporize easily to hold it temporarily would be great. I guess it depends on thickness you want to hold too whether you want to make something like a slurry or just the back of some adhesive tape.
I agree some experimenting will be in order.
I was also thinking dried mud or natural clay.
If you are only melting glass would you still need air assist or ventilation? I’m assuming that the glass dust is clean and free of organic material that might combust. Ditto for whatever the glass dust is sitting on (SS sheet?).
They would somehow need to block the air assist at the head since it is likely not controllable by the user.
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