I buy 4' x 8' sheets of either poplar sanded plywood or birch sanded plywood at Lowe's and they've always been great quality with no blemishes. I think it just depends on the store for what they carry. Hopefully yours will start getting in better options.
Great video. I buy all my wood at Home Depot. Here is a tip when you ask them to cut at Lowes or Home Depot, ask them to go real slow. The young man that cut mine yesterday....ZERO....I mean NO, NOTHING, ZILCH rough edges. I watched them cut it and the last time, each 4' x 8' sheet the person would cut in half in 5 seconds. This young man.....about 30 seconds. I was so impressed I told the manager what a great job he did.
Hey, the problem is with the flaring of the wood.. is because there blade is dull... a lot of places don't want to bother replacing the blades... but if you want to prevent it... goto menards get a roll of masking tape.. 2" wide.. you get like 5 rolls for $10.. take it to the place where it's to be cut and tape it on cut line before having them cut it.. this will stop the blow out.. u can even goto the dollar tree and get there masking tape.. boom no more having to deal with blow out... this is a well known trick in carpentry.. if you watch any cabinet makers they talk about it all the time on there videos... just fyi
How exciting! Yes, finding cost effective materials is definitely the hardest part. Sometimes Glowforge has sales on their proofgrade material, but usually Amazon or Etsy is the best bet for quality, reasonably priced materials in my experience.
There used to be a cheat sheet that I got off of the Glowforge Community forum, but it got deleted. But my usual go-to process for finding settings is to search the community forum & see if anyone else has settings for the same material or similar materials. Then it's just a matter of testing & trial & error. Or I'll try the proofgrade settings, for example, the proofgrade acrylic settings even if I'm working with non-proofgrade acrylic, etc. Hope that helps! Good luck! 🙌
I believe all the plywood should be laser friendly. I've never had any issues. I've gotten the Maple plywood & Lauan plywood & both have worked in the laser. But Lauan is the crappy plywood I refer to in the video, so I definitely recommend getting something nicer than that. Haha. Maple works great. Good luck!
@@mtanner47 I usually buy it from Amazon or Etsy. Here's the link to the Etsy one I bought most recently: www.etsy.com/listing/837855269/18-baltic-birch-plywood-12x203mm
It says that & I was worried about it at first, too. But another Glowforge RU-vidr is the one who recommended it to me, so I tried it & I haven't had any problems with it. So I recommend it, but it's up to you if you want to try it. 😊
Actually, after looking into it further, you're right! I put the wrong link in there, but it's been fixed now. The original link was for vinyl transfer tape, which you definitely do NOT want to use with your laser cutter. But the new link is now to the right product--paper transfer--and is perfectly safe in the Glowforge. Thank you for catching it and correcting me! I use the other tape with my Cricut and got mixed up. :)
@@book_things_and_baubles Just got a glowforge Aura. Besides the thick maple setting, what speed, cut settings do you use on your Lowes wood? I have the same wood and having issues with it not cutting all the way through.
@@katiebaker7091 I've never used the Aura before, so I'm not sure if the settings are exactly the same. But if it's having trouble cutting all the way through you could either lower the speed & bump up the power from the thick maple, or you could do 2 passes of the thick maple settings. 🙂 Good luck!
@@jenniferledford8045 You know, I haven't actually done a 15" round hanger myself. But depending on what kind of sign you're wanting to make, you could probably find a pre-made SVG file on Etsy. Maybe that's what I can try making for my next video, too!
I have a glowforge pro and I’ve been thinking about trying the Lowes plywood. It’s 1/4” thick right? In my area the best they have is a 1/4” premium birch ply. What settings are you using on your glowforge to get through the plywood? Do you use multiple passes?
Yes, most of the plywood is 1/4" thick, but it's also good to double check when you go just to make sure. I usually just try using the Glowforge proofgrade settings first, which for me ends up being the Thick Maple Plywood settings usually, but for you might be the Thick Birch Plywood (if that's a thing--I don't usually work with birch. Haha). And those settings usually work fine for me with one pass. But if they don't work, next place I would look for settings is in the Glowforge Community page. There's actually a Google Sheet someone made with different materials & the settings they use for them. I'll see if I can find it & link it for you!
If your machine is having problems, you can never get any customer support. No matter what you try. Email leaving messages or even on social media. They just do not respond no matter if you need support for your machine or an order. They just do not respond.
Oh no! I'm sorry you're having trouble getting hold of them. I haven't had any problems with my machine that I've needed to contact Glowforge over, so I'm not sure where to point you to get a resolution. It sounds like you've tried calling & emailing, which was my first thought. I don't know what your issue is, but I would suggest posting about it on the Glowforge community forum? There are lots of active members there & it's been where I've gone to find most answers to my questions. So maybe post about your issue there & see if other members have ideas on how to solve the issue? And if that doesn't help, they might know how to get you in touch with the people you need to talk to. Sorry I can't be more help! I hope you're able to get things figured out!
Lowe’s plywood is not good quality. Full of voids. It used to be cheep but no longer. I have found better sheet goods at Home Depot. That may be my locality.
