What Kind of Training? AAAAAARMY TRAINING SIR!

Hopefully there are folks old enough around here to recognize the quote.

My niece is in Army ROTC and almost a year away from her commission and I was trying to figure out a gift for her since A) she has to miss our passover seder and B) I have a glowforge…

First off a nice dorm room door sign. The US Army logo has 3 colors (black, yellow and white) and figured I’d make each a different level of engrave, so brought the logo into AI and did a 3-color trace, which worked perfectly. Exported it to another document with the text, and voila.

I did mess up a bit with the engrave order, so sadly the star had 3 shades got overwritten to two (the center of the star should be wood color). But it still looks awesome, actually way better than this photo (which somehow makes the star look grainy, it’s not). I may redo it at some point to have the white star… This is in proof grade maple.

but, wait, I have good artwork and a Glowforge, what else could I do with it? Well heck, I had all those leather luggage tag blanks from Laserbits, better try that…

Now first off when actually lasing, it smelled like a goat and a cow had a high-speed head-on collision and their gas tanks burst into flame. But moments afterwards, the smell had receded to the point that my wife shockingly walked in ( was waiting for the “WTF??”) and said “oh, smells like when I use the cautery in surgery”. So I guess having a surgeon for a wife finally paid off (it does smell like that now, but during, smells like my first description)…

First attempt was a fail, because I decided to keep the score line - don’t do that. it cut all the way through, interestingly only on the top left half (not sure why only one diagonal half)

So removed the score line

Now a couple of tricks.

Having had the masking paper (Laserbits masking paper) come off on the ply, I decided that wrapping it all the way around and sticking it to itself would provide perfect masking. it absolutely worked, and the masking was perfect.

I just randomly selected the heavier of the leathers, which seems to be right.

Impression?

OK the precision of leather is outrageous. If you look you can see clearly the periods in U.S. which are perfectly engraved. Those dots are maybe the size of a 10-point period? Maybe smaller? Just incredible sharp engraving, and this isn’t even proofgrade (although this is specific for laser engraving from laserbits)

Now @morganstanfield, I know you are busy with the baby, but you just need to toss him to the curb, because what this thing can do with leather with my zero-experience will produce pure magic in your hands!

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I can’t get over how the colors look on the maple. I actually like the way the star came out. You are making all of this look easy. :relaxed:

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Coffee. Nose. Keyboard. You know the rest

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To complete the quote above (relevant to me lasering in general and leather in particular): “Am I to understand that you men completed your training on your own? THAT’S THE FACT JACK!”

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That’s the first movie I remember watching and thinking… I’m probably not allowed to watch this. I was 10. I love Bill Murray to this day.

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Captain, these are exactly the kind of go-getters I want on my Glowforge project.

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Very good demonstration of the precision of the engraved lettering. Both are super crisp. Nice layout.

The score function is a bit touchy but improvements seem to be on the way. I’d suggest testing the score on a few different materials to see how it behaves. The denser the material the less worry about poking through on the corners or cutting dep.

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“SIR YOU NEED TO STEP AWAY FROM THE GLOWFORGE!”

That’s the problem with having a Glowforge is that you say “Hey, I bet I can lase that too!”

So here it is at 1350lpi vector engrave on an anodized dog tag… Holy crap!

And redid the maple one with keeping the engrave order correct. I wish I did a slightly darker background behind the star, but looks super nice as well.

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Having a Glowforge on the premises has made you a cold, cold man! (SO funny!) :smile:

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Oh, I totally demoted my younger son, so the order goes our daughter->GlowForge->Son (and the snowblower was eying his spot)

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Well he’s probably got a few months reprieve on that one, at least.

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@Jules The dog tag as well as the leather would be good on the highlights along with the sign, but I don’t know if you can highlight 2 sections of the same thread.

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Wait - this is a medical doctor quote… LOL :fearful: j/k

But - beautiful job on the signs and tag. I like the cut out tag as well - could become a nice patch or keychain or plaque nameplate. And congrats to the niece!

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We don’t have pediatrics at our hospital…

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Maybe not. Fair warning to other New Englanders - I just swapped the snow tires off the convertible today (it’s RWD, needs snows in the winter, all seasons the rest of the year). And to make it worse I put the snow blower in the shed!

Snowpocalypse might be expected in a matter of days :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

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WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?? It is so your fault… I’m figuring I might empty the gas out of the snowblower this week… Maybe…

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If @henryhbk’s son were smart, he’d keep a shovel in his room this week. Prove his worth and secure his place against the snowblower if they get snowed in. Bonus points if he thinks to clear the snow off the Glowforge exhaust.

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I didn’t want to work on taxes and it is so nice out today. But I’m heading down into the forge lair in a few.

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We’ve done that in the past…it makes the highlights too long with this many people contributing now.

I’m just linking one photo per thread/user combination, and then only if the topic veers significantly from the original.

Did you want me to use one of the other photos instead? :relaxed:

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the dog tag or the leather are the more unique items, (well except the new insanely small one I just posted as another thread)