Hi Guys,
I’ve had my Glowforge basic for a day and have been busy cutting out designs on basswood. However, I’m curious if anybody on here has cut out and/or engraved non proof grade leather; and what settings they used. The leather I’m using is Wickett & Craig vegetable tanned leather 4.oz, that’s fully finished and dyed through. I was going to input the proof grade leather settings and just hope for the best, but decided to check with anyone on here first. Thank you in advance.
John
I’ve never used this specific leather but you are on the right track in that you can almost always start with a 
setting and work from there. As you get better at guesstimating you will waste less and less getting the values down.
Hold your 4 oz up to a piece of and see just how much thicker it is than the From there you will have to take an educated guess on how much to tweak the settings.
Hey Mark,
Just finished!
So here’s what happened, I inputted medium proof grade natural leather setting for the cut. It cut a perfect circle with no burn marks to the front or back of leather. Of course the edges were lightly charred but it came off real easy with a sanding sponge. However it didn’t cut it out completely, I had to fold the circle over a few times to pop it out of the rest of the hide.
Just for fun I did another cut using the thick natural leather proofgrade settings. This time it cut out the circle in one pass but there was very slight burn marks to the front of the leather. For me I don’t mind wiggling and folding the leather over a few times to pop it out, better that than some burn marks.
That would have been my guess for outcome as well since medium is thinner than 4 oz and is unfinished. And thick is quite a bit thicker than 4 oz. 4-5 oz. is what I cut most frequently. I started with the medium setting and slowed it down some IIRC.
I think I’d try the “three bears” method. If medium setting (246 zoom/81 pews) was to little and thick setting (168/100) was too much, try a manual setting of something like 200/100? I think that’s around what I used for my last 3-4 oz leather project. Good luck, hope you find the setting that’s just right 
Yeah I realized the thick proofgrade setting would be ideal for 6-7 oz. medium seems to work well for 4.oz. So no harm in using proofgrade for this leather. Next I’m going to test some buttero leather from the Walpier tannery. It’s a little thinner than 4.oz so medium should be good too.
Thanks a lot for the setting information. I’m going to try it the next time I do some cutting. I’m sure it’ll help me save some material. Small increments are best for this type of material.
I typically use PG leather settings, and then manually input the material height since most of the leather that I use does not conform to PG thicknesses. I use a caliper to measure the leather (every time - because leather thickness can vary greatly, even on the same hide).
FWIW, I generally have better engraving results w/out masking.
Measuring it with calipers is a good idea. I’ve got a pair laying around here. I’ll put it to use. Thanks!!
And going forward I’ll keep the mask suggestion in mind when it comes to engraving.