Very nice work! And that Red Marblewood is really nice looking. Haven’t seen that before.
Thanks! I like it, I hadn’t seen it either until I ran into it on the “exotics” rack at the local hardwood place, and decided to give it a try. It’s a fairly tough wood, for sure, takes a lot of sanding!
I was at my local hardwood place yesterday. they are almost entirely exotics. I could get lost in there. Oh, and spend lots and lots of money!
1 Like
Here we have Exotic Lumber. It’s not all exotic, but stuff that I can’t grab at Home Depot for sure. I got my 5/4 x 13" rough sawn Red Oak there. I also picked up some European Pink Beech there for an upcoming project. But they run the gamut from $2.84 per board-foot for 4/4 poplar, all the way to $300 per board-foot 4/4 Snakewood. $77 per board-foot for Teak is crazy! it’s $27 per board-foot here, $35 if you want over 12’ long or over 12" wide. But then again, you’re on an Island, aren’t you, Angus? I’m sure that makes alot of things more expensive there.
Fortunately, the “exotic” section of my local place does cuts, and will let you purchase any length you want. Walnut, cherry and stuff like that are by the board, but those are a lot less expensive anyway. I use a fair bit of walnut and cherry, they’re my favourite stuff to work with.
Prices for the “exotic” stuff was in the $14/brft range, and for the normal stuff (walnut, cherry, oak, etc) is between $4 and $7.
Ahhhh, ok, so that’s not quite as absurdly horrible as it seemed, price-wise! Still expensive, but not extortionate any more.
What is the difference in this laser cutter and ones that use CO2 in the machine?
No difference, it primarily is just designed to be more useful in some ways, such as a built in camera/optics, cloud based software, and so on. It’s just a more “user friendly” laser.
Has anyone ever gotten one? I still feel like it could be a giant ponzi scheme.
I toured the office a couple months ago and it’s definitely a functional product. Not sure when they’ll be shipping, but they were using the crap out of one they had there for testing. It’s a neat device, very clean, and the camera integration is what will make (of break) it, I think.
Don’t really remember the details about the user software, but I think SVG’s from Inkskape and Illustrator were the main expected inputs. Oh, and it could use the camera to trace a line on something too. That was cool.
I think this is one of the latest press releases from them, http://www.geekwire.com/2016/glowforge-delays-shipments-28m-crowdfunding-campaign-ceo-says/.
Yes I think the camera idea is going to make the machine much easier to setup each time
then other machines of today. Others might copy them later. Hope they get it all going
soon and people start using them.
Oh Hey! So where is your Glowforge everyone was so hysterical about?
Mine is called a K40 cheap chinese laser that I have been enjoying for the last year for less than $300.00!
Good. Damn that’s a bargain! Where is the rest of the gang? Noone is gonna chime in?
I have the larger 50W version of said “K40”. It’s a much larger machine but that’s because of the larger cut area and the deeper Z-axis. I originally looked at the smaller K40 but by the time I would have upgraded everything I wanted I could have just bought the larger 50W. So I did. It comes with a DSP, air assist, motorized Z-axis, rotary attachment, among other things. I’ve only had it a few months now but it works amazingly well for what it is. It does not have all the fancy bells and whistles that an Epilog of the same size would have but I am a laser novice so it’s good enough for me.
Whats the thickest plywood you can cut?
3 mm to 6 mm single pass depending on the type of wood. Would not go much thicker than 6 mm.
That’s really all I would ever need. 6mm is that oak paneling stuff.
I have not tried oak but I am sure it would take a few passes to cut.
‘We let you down’: Glowforge delays shipments again as customers express disappointment
So where is that Glowforge laser everyone was so hot to trot about? Oh right.