I did a whole lot of experimentation with the laser cutters in grad school and I've cut a 2x4 in half (at night when no one was watching). The trick is to find the balance between power and speed, and multiple passes to reduce burning and tapering of the kerf.
Hey Michael! Two additional tips with acrylic. 1- for Engraving you can apply a thin layer of Dawn dish soap to the surface. It prevents flare ups and stops additions distortion from the heat during engraving. (my input on this is I always remove the film on the top of an engraving/cut because the paper is more likely to catch those microfires and add heat, as well as the adhesive on them melting and adding to cleanup time. 2- You can put a wet paper towel on the backside of the acrylic when doing full cut throughs. The wet paper towel prevents flare ups when the laser fully penetrates through and stops the "dimpling" or pitting you can get on the back edges from those flares. Good Luck!
Question: you have a gas furnace but are pushing air out of your house, are you concerned with sucking in the exhaust from your furnace? This is the argument for not venting your dust collector outside so you don’t have fine particles in your shop that are hazardous to your lungs. This requires a more powerful dust extraction system with expensive filters. I really hope you respond as it’s a sincere question from a woodworker who is looking for a laser cnc. Thanks! Great videos, appreciate them
Hey everyone, As I mentioned I'm new to laser cutting. I've received some great advice from other makers, and wanted to share. 1. Apparently magnets can interfere with the air assist on the tool. the better solution is something called a honeycomb pin that your can make with the machine 2. My accuracy problem is a result of not focusing the machine with the material thickness. This is fixed with a setting I missed in the software. There's also a calibration process which I didn't do that could help with this too. 3. There are some safety concerns with using lasers. I mentioned not to cut vinyl, but Maker's Muse has an excellent comprehensive video about this on his channel th-cam.com/video/-9hIXT8DMUU/w-d-xo.html 4. I have apologize there's a bit of confusion on my end about Shaper Studio it is a great program, but it requires a subscription after a 14 day trial. Their Beta version, Labs, was free when they released it. There are however other free vector apps like Inkscape, which I can feature in the next Glowforge video. Please comment if you know of others. Feel free to post additional information on this pinned comment, so we can learn from each other!
You can flip part and made another cut on thick materials. Positioning its not so hard. I glue piece of plywood to table and cut rectangle(remove inside). So you positioning part on left uper corner of machine. After cut flip it and position on right uper corner. Project need be mirrored.
Also experiment with various plywoods. The glue on some plywoods don’t laser as well as others…so you may have better success with other plywood. Another thing I noticed…try cutting the interior pieces before cutting the outside cuts so things don’t shift on you if/when they drop free.
As it is possible to reactivate PVA Glue with heat (for making your own iron-on edge banding for example). I guess this is what the laser is doing. It's reactivating the glue and leaving the particular pattern in the cut line fusing the cut away part with the rest of the material.
Hey Michael ! Great video. The plywood didn't cut mostly because of the glue that they use for standard birch ply. If you want to cut plywood, get some laser friendly plywood, often called laser ply. It uses a different glue which is not this dark but surely cuts through. Have fun with this machine !
@@dsnyder11081 same applies to trotec, bodor, universal laser and any other professional grade laser. All have trouble cutting through classic laminate wood glue and laser ply is always recommended.
For aligning your artwork a little easier, using Illustrator, make a grid/ruler along the edges of the GF crumb tray (tape, paper, cardboard, etc. works fine). Make as many adjustments as required to reach the edges of the GF printable area. Then using that same grid/ruler template, make that a non-printable layer and you can use another layer to line up your artwork. This will take a lot of the guesswork out of trying to line things up like you were with the book-matched ash boards. Hope this helps.
The first clock with the rounded over patterned ply is stunning! I love both, you and Blake Weber need to meet and come together for a build! He uses the Glowforge for his mountain and scenic cabinets he builds, I imagine he knows this machine in and out at this point plus I’d love to see what you two came up with together 🤘🏽
It always amazes me watching these videos on some of these tools. In nowhere in this video do I sense that the value of this tool is outrageous and definitely not for everyone. This is not just another tool to add like a saw, planer or jointer. The cheapest Glowforge is $4K. I pride myself on owning a well stocked garage with some quality tools but trying to explain to the wife that I need to buy this, that is literally twice as much as I have spent on anything else besides the building they are in. I've used these lazers at my local Makerspace and would love to own one, but cost will say otherwise. Besides that, I enjoy the channel.
I've had my Glowforge for 2 1/2 years now and it's still my fave tool ever! It's also still going strong on its original laser tube and have never had an issue with it. So easy to use.
For kerf calibration, I like to make a shape that is 15mm square with a 10mm cutout square in the middle. I use this standard shape for setting up the cut settings on new material, then when I have the settings dialed in, I can measure the parts with some calipers. I will check both X and Y dimensions of the 15mm square, the 10mm square, and the 10mm cutout with some calipers. Using those measurements, you can figure out the exact kerf in your material, with those settings on your tool. On some materials with directionality, like wood grain, you may notice a difference in kerf when "ripping" vs "cross-cutting". If i want parts to fit snugly, I will offset all the cut lines by roughly 1/2 of the kerf, going larger for outer edges and smaller for inside cutouts. With the kerf added, the parts should end up precisely the dimension you want. For instance, I know with 1/8" acrylic that the kerf is roughly 0.2-0.25mm, so I usually change the dimensions by 0.1mm to get perfect fits. Side note - While I am in the US, but work in engineering so our tool is setup metric, and a lot of my design work in done in metric, but you could easily do something similar in imperial. Maybe a 3/4" square with 1/2" cutout.
I’d add to this : Your kerf offset will change depending on your cutting speed and power so you need to determine your cutting settings for a given piece and then do a kerf calculation. I’ve wasted a lot of time and materials trying to get puzzle parts to fit together with the tolerances That i want. My conclusion was that the shaper origin is better suited then the glow forge for tight tolerance inlay type work.
Awesome video Michael. I was really looking forward to this one as I could not even begin to wrap my head around the capabilities of this machine. Even after the video it seem you’ve only scratched the surface. Excited to see what’s next!
There is also a calibration step that you can do to get your camera more calibrated. Takes some time and some material. But if you do a lot of things that require the camera to be more accurate it’s worth it. Also…. You can go to “set focus” and have the camera focus in a designated part of your material.
I'm always surprised how many people on youtube I watch just happen to have custom mechanical keyboards... it's like all my interests overlap over one another 😁 I'm using a keychron V1 with tangerine switches and GMK WoB as a daily driver right now 👍
A while back I also tried laser cutting end grain birch ply and had the same problem. I had reduced it down to 6mm but it seems the glue was deflecting the laser and the cut was all over the shop. Did the same run with 6mm Ash solid timber and had no problem!
In my experience with exhaust ducts in laser machines, I've noticed a lot of soot accumulating in those flexible rockler (and other brands) dust hoses. Switching to rigid pvc or another smooth hose might prevent future fire hazards. love your videos btw!
I've had my Glowforge Pro since February, I've found that working with 1/4 - 3/16 material its amazing. I've been doing some thicker materials and found that using the score function to just quickly mark out a cut line then use my bandsaw or table saw to finish cut, and sand to the line. Ive found that building up with multiple layers of thinner material tends to give me a better result but can often feel very "laser" -- one of the things I really love that you said is that the GF should be a tool in the shop not the the entire means of production. that mentality has, for me, increased the value of what I've made with it significantly.
Cool video. You need to account for the thickness of the material in order for the camera to capture the position correctly. you can put the thickness when u click on use uncertified materials in the materials drop down
Hi Michael :) I work with ash a lot, and stain it with india ink a fair bit too. I had a lot of issues with even application at first, and noticed some subtle unevenness on your clock (probably only noticed it because I've spent so much time staring at that material combo lol). India ink is fun because you can vary the deepness of the black with varying thickness of coats and number of coats, but that can also make it hard to get it consistent. A lot of my issues came when applying wipe-on finish. i found the best solution was to do a quick coat of spray-on shellac or something similar as soon as the india ink dries and you're happy with the look. Good to be thoughtful of what your final finish will be to make sure they don't interfere. Hope this helps.
wow, built in the time it takes with passion, not rush (although the patterned plywood was a minor disturbance in the force). the quality and finish you produce is excellent this is a first watching one of your videos for me on the wall and, I'm happy to watch a master perform their craft. i very much look forward to seeing some more of your projects; the mix of tech and nature makes me fuzzy
Bummer about the laser-through issues with hardwood! Only tip I have after many years lasering is to avoid over 90% power: you will find output at 100% strangely inconsistent when you push it, and it reduces the lifespan of the tube ;)
A nice combo with the glowforge and the shaper origin would be to engrave onto your desk caddy with the glowforge after you router out pockets. Things like a logo or even the names of the items in each pocket to help keep things organised as you use them and put them back
i love the process's you go through to get your desired results, furthermore i absolutely love the design of your office its so quirky and pleasing to the eye ..........very VERY well done
A laser cutter is my next buy. To add to my, lathe, mill, vacuum former, 3d printer, 5 axis cnc machine, vinyl cutter etc etc etc. All still unpacked. I have so many ideas and plans but way to busy at work 😞. Over the last 5 years I’ve spent in excess of 500k on tools. I can’t help myself. 😂
Damn I wish you lived closer! :) I work with miniatures and there are tons of SVGs I have that I would like to make for various projects. But it’s hard to justify getting this for a very casual hobby.
Excited to see the Glowforge arrive and am looking forward to how you leverage it. I’ve had mine for years (was an initial backer of the crowdfunding) and it’s paid for itself many times over, creating some incredibly intricate things. There’s a learning curve to figure out the tricks but the speed that you can experiment and iterate is amazing and the ease of use is pretty great. Have fun!
Love the look of the first clock face. I believe the issue with cutting through the patterned plywood has to do with the inconsistencies in wood density and glue when cutting through the end grain. I got to use a laser cutter a lot a few year ago when I was still in school and something I found is that the cut edges need to be sanded slightly to get rid of the scorching before gluing otherwise the glue doesn't adhere well and the joint becomes brittle.
This is interesting, I was wondering if maybe it had something to do with the glue melting rather than being cleanly cut. But the inconsistent density of end grain makes a lot of sense.
For thicker stuff, as mentioned, you need to account for the thickness. Also, I’ve had luck using the “set focus” option under the … menu, and setting the focus manually on exactly where I’m going to cut. Great design, awesome video as always
Some wisdom from the machine shop, if I may. When you are verbalizing a three place decimal or any inch based measurment that isnt a fraction, convention is to say .020" as "twenty thousandths". 1/8th of an inch becomes "one hundred and twenty five thousanths" Its easy and rolls off the tongue, you can abbreviate thousandths as "thou" if you're a cool kid. :p Reason being that always carrying out your notation to three decimals makes measurments a lot easier to distinguish from metric and also avoids confusion when you want to use a decimal to describe a fraction. For instance; 0.13" is a confusing way to describe what you might mean as 1/8" which has become rounded up, if you really do mean .13", note it as .130". Keeping everything at three decimals (unless you need four or more) gives an easy to parse visual continuity to inch numbers.
28:08 while assembling the hands of the clock... always point them all the three hands upwards, 12:00:00. Then adjust it for the current time with the adjuster behind. That way your clocks will give you much accurate angles, all the times.
Are you able to adjust the hight of the cut table in the glowforge? The dotted issue is likely the loss of cutting power given the laser's focal point. Given the thickness of the ply and how lasers work, if you're able to raise the bed for the third pass, that should solve the problem and cut all the way through.
Michael, for vector design, I strongly suggest that you look at Affinity Designer; it is just as good as Illustrator, and in many ways much better, AND it is a single purchase license instead of the perpetual subscription forced by Adobe.
Love the projects, although... I hope this doesn't come off as overly critical, but on the second clock face I'd personally have oriented the grain pattern to go along with the patterned plywood, rather than across.
As a newbie, sorry for the question: but what is the crimper tool at 2:07 which you use on that duct? And why is it necessary to do that instead of just leaving the round metal? I know there must be a great reason, but I don't see it.
This was such a well put together video. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this. And I would like to acknowledge your creativity and commitment to your work. It is really inspiring to see someone go to the links that you have went to to commit to completing your projects. I am considering purchasing a laser engraving machine. Although the glo forges extremely out of my budget at the time. I do believe that it might be a machine that I buy in the future. Do you have any other experiences with any other laser engraving machines?
My internal laser debate continues, but that fan in the intro looks like a must for whatever I get, whenever I get it. Thanks Michael!😀🤙🏻 (P.S. John K FTW!)
I love my Glowforge. And yes… the possibilities are pretty endless. I have used mine to make templates for my woodworking. I have not used all it’s capabilities. Definitely underused. Also… I had forgotten about MakerCase. I need to check that out again. Also thingiverse has some great files.
How does the char from the laser affect the glue strength? Clocks look really good, and I am very interested in seeing what you can do with engraving on wood then reshaping.
I know this is off topic but would like to know your opinion, what type of wood glue would you use on a cutting board? I have really nice cutting board and it has split into two and have no idea what brand of glue to use. Yes, I have googled it 😂 but it does get a little confusing with all the options so, I thought Michael would know 👍🏽 Thanks in advance ♥️
Oh, would I love to have a Glow Forge. My office mate's wife used to run a small etsy business with just her Glow Forge. The thing she sells the most of is clock faces much like the ones you did followed by "cutting boards" that of course will never ever used to cut anything. Most of these are memorial pieces with the picture of somebody burned into the surface. People would pick out the size and shape and design they wanted and uploaded a picture they wanted burned into the surface. She has software that allows her to take a picture and turn it into a black and white image with a minimum set of lines and dots to define the image. She would get the job set up and then just email an image file back for final approval and then just burn in the the black portion of the image into the wood of the clock face. My office mate has a clock with the pictures of their two cats, both long dead, curled up and napping, one at 3 o'clock and the other at 9 o'clock. For a woodworker I think the Glow Forge would be ideal to burn/etch patterns and other fine detail into the surface of drawer faces or jewelry box lids and the like. Just the black char could be sealed in with a couple layers of poly for simple black lines (like your initial test ruler). Or you could have it burned in deeper, but not all the way through and then scrape the char out and fill the channels with epoxy. I think it would be really cool to mix in metal powders to give it an inlaid metal appearance. On thing I learned about using metal powders in epoxy from another channel's experience is that the metal powder settles to the bottom. The solution is to cover the surface with parchment paper or something that the epoxy won't stick to as well as it sticks to the wood, cover that with a board and then turn it upside down so that the visible surface of the epoxy is the "bottom". This should give the greatest amount of metal right at the surface of the epoxy. But I would imagine you would to have to be very careful that after the epoxy is dry that very little final sanding is required lest the surface layers with all of the metal in it is sanded away and you get down to the layers with much less metal in it. And of course it would be great to cut out templates from adhesive backed paper with a release sheet. Just cut out the template, peal off the backing and the template adheres itself to the wood ready make complicated cuts easy. You could even make sure that kerf width slots are put exactly where they are supposed to be when notches and channels need to be cut so there is no potential for cutting on the wrongs side of a line such that the kerf comes out of the good side instead of the scrap side.
Really cool video, Michael! That glowing blue button looks incredibly satisfying to push too. Can you confirm? Please show us more cool builds with this thing!
Thank you for the video! In the part where you are adjusting the size of your cut for the pattern plywood, you are incrementing by 1/100 of an inch (which is 2/10 of a millimeter for metric), is that the max precision of the machine or you could have done increments of like 1/1000 of an inch (25µm) ?
Very cool tool, or should I say "toy" 😄. I'd love to have one, but unfortunately I have neither the space nor the budget 😃. Looking forward to seeing you put it to use, Michael!
For thicker natural materials, try a lot of passes at lower power. It’s death by 1000 paper cuts but you won’t get as much charring. I dunno if glowforge lets you adjust the focal point but thicker materials will need adjustment to make sure the focal point of the laser is where it needs to be.
I cant believe how you can add so much detail and still end up with a simplistic and elegant final product.
I did a whole lot of experimentation with the laser cutters in grad school and I've cut a 2x4 in half (at night when no one was watching). The trick is to find the balance between power and speed, and multiple passes to reduce burning and tapering of the kerf.
Hey Michael! Two additional tips with acrylic.
1- for Engraving you can apply a thin layer of Dawn dish soap to the surface. It prevents flare ups and stops additions distortion from the heat during engraving. (my input on this is I always remove the film on the top of an engraving/cut because the paper is more likely to catch those microfires and add heat, as well as the adhesive on them melting and adding to cleanup time.
2- You can put a wet paper towel on the backside of the acrylic when doing full cut throughs. The wet paper towel prevents flare ups when the laser fully penetrates through and stops the "dimpling" or pitting you can get on the back edges from those flares.
Good Luck!
Great tips! Thank you!
Awesome tip. I do a decent amount of acrylic... and have been wondering how best to stop that from happening... definitely going to try this!
@@TheNewJankyWorkshop Hope it helps!
Question: you have a gas furnace but are pushing air out of your house, are you concerned with sucking in the exhaust from your furnace? This is the argument for not venting your dust collector outside so you don’t have fine particles in your shop that are hazardous to your lungs. This requires a more powerful dust extraction system with expensive filters.
I really hope you respond as it’s a sincere question from a woodworker who is looking for a laser cnc.
Thanks!
Great videos, appreciate them
Hey everyone, As I mentioned I'm new to laser cutting. I've received some great advice from other makers, and wanted to share.
1. Apparently magnets can interfere with the air assist on the tool. the better solution is something called a honeycomb pin that your can make with the machine
2. My accuracy problem is a result of not focusing the machine with the material thickness. This is fixed with a setting I missed in the software. There's also a calibration process which I didn't do that could help with this too.
3. There are some safety concerns with using lasers. I mentioned not to cut vinyl, but Maker's Muse has an excellent comprehensive video about this on his channel th-cam.com/video/-9hIXT8DMUU/w-d-xo.html
4. I have apologize there's a bit of confusion on my end about Shaper Studio it is a great program, but it requires a subscription after a 14 day trial. Their Beta version, Labs, was free when they released it. There are however other free vector apps like Inkscape, which I can feature in the next Glowforge video. Please comment if you know of others.
Feel free to post additional information on this pinned comment, so we can learn from each other!
You can flip part and made another cut on thick materials. Positioning its not so hard. I glue piece of plywood to table and cut rectangle(remove inside). So you positioning part on left uper corner of machine. After cut flip it and position on right uper corner. Project need be mirrored.
backing material on the underside can help with the scorching on the underside
Also experiment with various plywoods. The glue on some plywoods don’t laser as well as others…so you may have better success with other plywood.
Another thing I noticed…try cutting the interior pieces before cutting the outside cuts so things don’t shift on you if/when they drop free.
As it is possible to reactivate PVA Glue with heat (for making your own iron-on edge banding for example). I guess this is what the laser is doing. It's reactivating the glue and leaving the particular pattern in the cut line fusing the cut away part with the rest of the material.
@@michaellpeterson I usually cut 3mm. But once get model-making ply 0,5-1mm it was hideous to cut.
Hey Michael ! Great video. The plywood didn't cut mostly because of the glue that they use for standard birch ply. If you want to cut plywood, get some laser friendly plywood, often called laser ply. It uses a different glue which is not this dark but surely cuts through. Have fun with this machine !
Came here to say this. This should be pinned to the top.
Or don’t buy a glow force
He addressed this here >25:26
@@dsnyder11081 same applies to trotec, bodor, universal laser and any other professional grade laser. All have trouble cutting through classic laminate wood glue and laser ply is always recommended.
@@dsnyder11081 it's called laser plywood because most machine can't cut it 😮💨😮💨
For aligning your artwork a little easier, using Illustrator, make a grid/ruler along the edges of the GF crumb tray (tape, paper, cardboard, etc. works fine). Make as many adjustments as required to reach the edges of the GF printable area. Then using that same grid/ruler template, make that a non-printable layer and you can use another layer to line up your artwork. This will take a lot of the guesswork out of trying to line things up like you were with the book-matched ash boards. Hope this helps.
Check if there are such templates available for download. Just will need to test it out before using it for work.
The first clock with the rounded over patterned ply is stunning! I love both, you and Blake Weber need to meet and come together for a build! He uses the Glowforge for his mountain and scenic cabinets he builds, I imagine he knows this machine in and out at this point plus I’d love to see what you two came up with together 🤘🏽
Thank you!! I love Blake's work and totally agree it'd be nice to do a collab someday!
@@MichaelAlm hey
Don’t stop!!!!!! I could watch this video allllllll day. Love your ideas and love seeing you bringing them to life.
I started teaching in an elementary school Innovation Lab and got a Glowforge last year. Complete game changer for me personally and professionally!
Wow, first time watcher. Blown away by your creativity, the video production and shots, the execution of the projects and the honesty! Subscribed!
Your venting solution is maybe the most elegant I have seen; so, Thanks for sharing a great idea!
This is an excellent show Glowforge PRO ! Thank for share us!👍
Yo, those clocks turned out great! Fine design choices, Michael!
It always amazes me watching these videos on some of these tools. In nowhere in this video do I sense that the value of this tool is outrageous and definitely not for everyone. This is not just another tool to add like a saw, planer or jointer. The cheapest Glowforge is $4K. I pride myself on owning a well stocked garage with some quality tools but trying to explain to the wife that I need to buy this, that is literally twice as much as I have spent on anything else besides the building they are in. I've used these lazers at my local Makerspace and would love to own one, but cost will say otherwise. Besides that, I enjoy the channel.
I've had my Glowforge for 2 1/2 years now and it's still my fave tool ever! It's also still going strong on its original laser tube and have never had an issue with it. So easy to use.
For kerf calibration, I like to make a shape that is 15mm square with a 10mm cutout square in the middle. I use this standard shape for setting up the cut settings on new material, then when I have the settings dialed in, I can measure the parts with some calipers. I will check both X and Y dimensions of the 15mm square, the 10mm square, and the 10mm cutout with some calipers. Using those measurements, you can figure out the exact kerf in your material, with those settings on your tool. On some materials with directionality, like wood grain, you may notice a difference in kerf when "ripping" vs "cross-cutting". If i want parts to fit snugly, I will offset all the cut lines by roughly 1/2 of the kerf, going larger for outer edges and smaller for inside cutouts. With the kerf added, the parts should end up precisely the dimension you want. For instance, I know with 1/8" acrylic that the kerf is roughly 0.2-0.25mm, so I usually change the dimensions by 0.1mm to get perfect fits.
Side note - While I am in the US, but work in engineering so our tool is setup metric, and a lot of my design work in done in metric, but you could easily do something similar in imperial. Maybe a 3/4" square with 1/2" cutout.
I’d add to this : Your kerf offset will change depending on your cutting speed and power so you need to determine your cutting settings for a given piece and then do a kerf calculation.
I’ve wasted a lot of time and materials trying to get puzzle parts to fit together with the tolerances That i want. My conclusion was that the shaper origin is better suited then the glow forge for tight tolerance inlay type work.
I would enjoy my time in your workshop too! I have my fingers in so many pies already, but I've had my eyes on these tools for a long time.
Awesome video Michael. I was really looking forward to this one as I could not even begin to wrap my head around the capabilities of this machine. Even after the video it seem you’ve only scratched the surface. Excited to see what’s next!
There is also a calibration step that you can do to get your camera more calibrated. Takes some time and some material. But if you do a lot of things that require the camera to be more accurate it’s worth it. Also…. You can go to “set focus” and have the camera focus in a designated part of your material.
Love the clocks and all the use-cases you show! I want one so bad 😩 I would organize ALL THE THINGS
Love your desk caddy!!! Consider using your laser to cut out felt inserts for the holes. Just brings takes the caddy to another level
I’m so impressed by the finessed techniques building everything.
It truly feels like a precise laser is the right addition to your shop.
I'm always surprised how many people on youtube I watch just happen to have custom mechanical keyboards... it's like all my interests overlap over one another 😁
I'm using a keychron V1 with tangerine switches and GMK WoB as a daily driver right now 👍
A while back I also tried laser cutting end grain birch ply and had the same problem. I had reduced it down to 6mm but it seems the glue was deflecting the laser and the cut was all over the shop. Did the same run with 6mm Ash solid timber and had no problem!
Another great video and those are some really beautiful clocks. Thanks for taking the time to share Michael 🙂
I would absolutely buy that black clock. It's SO attractive!!!
This is exactly what I want. You had me at "I just want this to be another machine in the shop" I love wood working... Thank you for this video.
In my experience with exhaust ducts in laser machines, I've noticed a lot of soot accumulating in those flexible rockler (and other brands) dust hoses. Switching to rigid pvc or another smooth hose might prevent future fire hazards. love your videos btw!
Good to know! Maybe that'll be the next upgrade. Thanks!
I've had my Glowforge Pro since February, I've found that working with 1/4 - 3/16 material its amazing. I've been doing some thicker materials and found that using the score function to just quickly mark out a cut line then use my bandsaw or table saw to finish cut, and sand to the line. Ive found that building up with multiple layers of thinner material tends to give me a better result but can often feel very "laser" -- one of the things I really love that you said is that the GF should be a tool in the shop not the the entire means of production. that mentality has, for me, increased the value of what I've made with it significantly.
I hope your girlfriend is OK with being a tool in your shop. It does seem unfair to make her the entire means of production. 😁
@@skeebob haha exactly! Gotta let her take a break sometimes!
Cool video. You need to account for the thickness of the material in order for the camera to capture the position correctly. you can put the thickness when u click on use uncertified materials in the materials drop down
Another fantastic video. I can't wait until you are able to get the patterned plywood cutouts perfectly dialed in.
What an amazing tool! Looking forward to seeing more great creations in the future.
You are just awesome, I am grateful that you don't mind sharing all these cool sites.
Very very nice. Both the clocks look beautiful great work.
Wonderful clocks ! I really enjoyed the process as well 😍
Exciting stuff; Oh to be young again and set-up shop with these wonderful machines. Thank you for the video.
Hi Michael :) I work with ash a lot, and stain it with india ink a fair bit too. I had a lot of issues with even application at first, and noticed some subtle unevenness on your clock (probably only noticed it because I've spent so much time staring at that material combo lol). India ink is fun because you can vary the deepness of the black with varying thickness of coats and number of coats, but that can also make it hard to get it consistent.
A lot of my issues came when applying wipe-on finish. i found the best solution was to do a quick coat of spray-on shellac or something similar as soon as the india ink dries and you're happy with the look. Good to be thoughtful of what your final finish will be to make sure they don't interfere.
Hope this helps.
Yay new video!! Was starting to think you were missing at sea or something!
Hahaha! I kinda was. I took October off for a much need vacation. BUT I'M BACK!
Early, baby! Gonna start working on some projects inspired by your channel soon. I'm the guy who did that guitar recently lol. Love your work.
Good video Michael! Thanks for sharing it with us!💖👍😎JP
Thanks...and great save with the black veneer.
This is one of my favorite channels!
I ewes,thinking about one of these a while back but read some indifferent reviews. This is great to show what it can do. Thanks. Andy UK
Sheesh I need a glowforge!! Those are KILLER! Nice work!!!
So cool. Sat here and watched every moment with my mouth hanging open.
Quite impressive. Love the effects your able to make. Fascinating and beautiful!
Thanx for a well done demonstration of this very cool tool.
wow, built in the time it takes with passion, not rush (although the patterned plywood was a minor disturbance in the force). the quality and finish you produce is excellent this is a first watching one of your videos for me on the wall and, I'm happy to watch a master perform their craft. i very much look forward to seeing some more of your projects; the mix of tech and nature makes me fuzzy
Bummer about the laser-through issues with hardwood! Only tip I have after many years lasering is to avoid over 90% power: you will find output at 100% strangely inconsistent when you push it, and it reduces the lifespan of the tube ;)
I am sincerely happy for you, man!
Those clocks look so good!!
I have that same fan in my garage. Helps desmoke the place after I light the wood stove
A nice combo with the glowforge and the shaper origin would be to engrave onto your desk caddy with the glowforge after you router out pockets. Things like a logo or even the names of the items in each pocket to help keep things organised as you use them and put them back
Amazing work, Michael! Really beautiful clocks!!! 😃
That's a fantastic machine indeed! Congrats!!!
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Thanks MC!!
this video is SO full of information, thank you so much!
i love the process's you go through to get your desired results, furthermore i absolutely love the design of your office its so quirky and pleasing to the eye ..........very VERY well done
I get so much 'workshop envy' watching this. Great work.
Great video and great projects. It’s inspiring to see you incorporate Glowforge output with woodworking!
Thank you for using also the metric system when you describe measurements
Very Cool! I would Love to have a Michael Alm clock!
A laser cutter is my next buy.
To add to my, lathe, mill, vacuum former, 3d printer, 5 axis cnc machine, vinyl cutter etc etc etc.
All still unpacked. I have so many ideas and plans but way to busy at work 😞. Over the last 5 years I’ve spent in excess of 500k on tools. I can’t help myself. 😂
Ok. Looks great. Trying to decide between Glowforge and Xtool Laserbox. What should my decision be?
Damn I wish you lived closer! :) I work with miniatures and there are tons of SVGs I have that I would like to make for various projects. But it’s hard to justify getting this for a very casual hobby.
Great review! What is the make/model of the desktop calculator you have?! It looks awesome!
yeah, such a beautiful piece!
Excited to see the Glowforge arrive and am looking forward to how you leverage it. I’ve had mine for years (was an initial backer of the crowdfunding) and it’s paid for itself many times over, creating some incredibly intricate things. There’s a learning curve to figure out the tricks but the speed that you can experiment and iterate is amazing and the ease of use is pretty great. Have fun!
This Glowforrge thing is ranking hi on my wish list... Well done Brother. Thank you for the offering and tootleage.
Do yourself a favor and do more research. There are better lower cost alternatives out there
Agree with Byrom. I owned one and I couldn't move on fast enough.
Love the look of the first clock face. I believe the issue with cutting through the patterned plywood has to do with the inconsistencies in wood density and glue when cutting through the end grain. I got to use a laser cutter a lot a few year ago when I was still in school and something I found is that the cut edges need to be sanded slightly to get rid of the scorching before gluing otherwise the glue doesn't adhere well and the joint becomes brittle.
Thanks! Interesting about the glue-up. That makes total sense!! I'll make sure and do that from now on
This is interesting, I was wondering if maybe it had something to do with the glue melting rather than being cleanly cut. But the inconsistent density of end grain makes a lot of sense.
Would love to have a glowforge! Looks so much fun! Also, you should look at getting a wall-mount monitor arm to free up more desk space!
Perfect, Dr. Who. Amazing work!😃
For thicker stuff, as mentioned, you need to account for the thickness. Also, I’ve had luck using the “set focus” option under the … menu, and setting the focus manually on exactly where I’m going to cut. Great design, awesome video as always
Hi Micheal, for the drawer labels have you tried cutting veneer? you could make wood labels, which would looks cool in the brass holders.
Some wisdom from the machine shop, if I may.
When you are verbalizing a three place decimal or any inch based measurment that isnt a fraction, convention is to say .020" as "twenty thousandths". 1/8th of an inch becomes "one hundred and twenty five thousanths" Its easy and rolls off the tongue, you can abbreviate thousandths as "thou" if you're a cool kid. :p
Reason being that always carrying out your notation to three decimals makes measurments a lot easier to distinguish from metric and also avoids confusion when you want to use a decimal to describe a fraction. For instance; 0.13" is a confusing way to describe what you might mean as 1/8" which has become rounded up, if you really do mean .13", note it as .130". Keeping everything at three decimals (unless you need four or more) gives an easy to parse visual continuity to inch numbers.
28:08 while assembling the hands of the clock... always point them all the three hands upwards, 12:00:00. Then adjust it for the current time with the adjuster behind. That way your clocks will give you much accurate angles, all the times.
Good to know!!
Are you able to adjust the hight of the cut table in the glowforge? The dotted issue is likely the loss of cutting power given the laser's focal point. Given the thickness of the ply and how lasers work, if you're able to raise the bed for the third pass, that should solve the problem and cut all the way through.
You can try with affinity designer sofware for vectors too.
I've heard the turn of phrase "It sounds like a jet taking off", but this is the first...well...anything that ACTUALLY sounds like a jet taking off.
Besides jets. Sorry 🙃
@@kevinfager. but only as they're taking off 😅
When cutting thicker material you could try cutting the bottom after doing the top.
Michael, for vector design, I strongly suggest that you look at Affinity Designer; it is just as good as Illustrator, and in many ways much better, AND it is a single purchase license instead of the perpetual subscription forced by Adobe.
The clocks look wonderful Michael, but the process displayed the many limitations of the glowforge.
Good instruction. Love your work. Wow, what a treat to watch and learn. Bravo!
Love the projects, although... I hope this doesn't come off as overly critical, but on the second clock face I'd personally have oriented the grain pattern to go along with the patterned plywood, rather than across.
As a newbie, sorry for the question: but what is the crimper tool at 2:07 which you use on that duct? And why is it necessary to do that instead of just leaving the round metal? I know there must be a great reason, but I don't see it.
This was such a well put together video. I really appreciate the time and effort you put into this. And I would like to acknowledge your creativity and commitment to your work. It is really inspiring to see someone go to the links that you have went to to commit to completing your projects.
I am considering purchasing a laser engraving machine. Although the glo forges extremely out of my budget at the time. I do believe that it might be a machine that I buy in the future.
Do you have any other experiences with any other laser engraving machines?
Look into Omtech Polar or Flux .
My Flux Beamo comes tomorrow!!
You’re having way too much fun. Those clocks were way cool!
My internal laser debate continues, but that fan in the intro looks like a must for whatever I get, whenever I get it. Thanks Michael!😀🤙🏻 (P.S. John K FTW!)
I love my Glowforge. And yes… the possibilities are pretty endless. I have used mine to make templates for my woodworking. I have not used all it’s capabilities. Definitely underused. Also… I had forgotten about MakerCase. I need to check that out again. Also thingiverse has some great files.
Bang on the money. A joy to watch your skill.
How does the char from the laser affect the glue strength? Clocks look really good, and I am very interested in seeing what you can do with engraving on wood then reshaping.
Just when I thought I was over the idea of wanting a Glowforge your video has sucked me back in
same.
Surprised you haven't done a patterned plywood case for your keyboard. Nice brass weight would go nicely with the color palette you'd have.
I can't read analog clocks without numbers & then you took the markers off one too🤣 They look cool but I'm really glad I don't have to use them
I know this is off topic but would like to know your opinion, what type of wood glue would you use on a cutting board? I have really nice cutting board and it has split into two and have no idea what brand of glue to use. Yes, I have googled it 😂 but it does get a little confusing with all the options so, I thought Michael would know 👍🏽 Thanks in advance ♥️
Most of the cutting board makers I know use Titebond 3. It's food safe and water proof.
@@MichaelAlm Thank you so much!
Oh, would I love to have a Glow Forge. My office mate's wife used to run a small etsy business with just her Glow Forge. The thing she sells the most of is clock faces much like the ones you did followed by "cutting boards" that of course will never ever used to cut anything. Most of these are memorial pieces with the picture of somebody burned into the surface. People would pick out the size and shape and design they wanted and uploaded a picture they wanted burned into the surface. She has software that allows her to take a picture and turn it into a black and white image with a minimum set of lines and dots to define the image. She would get the job set up and then just email an image file back for final approval and then just burn in the the black portion of the image into the wood of the clock face. My office mate has a clock with the pictures of their two cats, both long dead, curled up and napping, one at 3 o'clock and the other at 9 o'clock.
For a woodworker I think the Glow Forge would be ideal to burn/etch patterns and other fine detail into the surface of drawer faces or jewelry box lids and the like. Just the black char could be sealed in with a couple layers of poly for simple black lines (like your initial test ruler). Or you could have it burned in deeper, but not all the way through and then scrape the char out and fill the channels with epoxy. I think it would be really cool to mix in metal powders to give it an inlaid metal appearance. On thing I learned about using metal powders in epoxy from another channel's experience is that the metal powder settles to the bottom. The solution is to cover the surface with parchment paper or something that the epoxy won't stick to as well as it sticks to the wood, cover that with a board and then turn it upside down so that the visible surface of the epoxy is the "bottom". This should give the greatest amount of metal right at the surface of the epoxy. But I would imagine you would to have to be very careful that after the epoxy is dry that very little final sanding is required lest the surface layers with all of the metal in it is sanded away and you get down to the layers with much less metal in it.
And of course it would be great to cut out templates from adhesive backed paper with a release sheet. Just cut out the template, peal off the backing and the template adheres itself to the wood ready make complicated cuts easy. You could even make sure that kerf width slots are put exactly where they are supposed to be when notches and channels need to be cut so there is no potential for cutting on the wrongs side of a line such that the kerf comes out of the good side instead of the scrap side.
Really cool video, Michael! That glowing blue button looks incredibly satisfying to push too. Can you confirm? Please show us more cool builds with this thing!
Thank you for the video! In the part where you are adjusting the size of your cut for the pattern plywood, you are incrementing by 1/100 of an inch (which is 2/10 of a millimeter for metric), is that the max precision of the machine or you could have done increments of like 1/1000 of an inch (25µm) ?
Very cool tool, or should I say "toy" 😄. I'd love to have one, but unfortunately I have neither the space nor the budget 😃. Looking forward to seeing you put it to use, Michael!
For thicker natural materials, try a lot of passes at lower power. It’s death by 1000 paper cuts but you won’t get as much charring. I dunno if glowforge lets you adjust the focal point but thicker materials will need adjustment to make sure the focal point of the laser is where it needs to be.
clocks look great, nice job
Super-helpful video. Learned a ton. Inspiring. thanks for posting! :D