- Glowforge arrived! And now it's time to make things. What to make first? I have recommendations on the five projects I think
every beginner should make. (bright music) Hi, I'm Katie and this
is Things Katie Makes, and we talk about
everything Glowforge-related to help you move forward
in your Glowforge journey. Today, let's talk about those
five recommended projects and why I think they're so important. The first one is the one that
Glowforge recommends as well, and that is the gift of good measure; a great project to start off with. One, it's right there in the
catalog when you start up, so you know that you should be doing it. Two, anytime that you have
an issue with your Glowforge, they'll ask you to print this to make sure that everything
is working properly. Three, this has all the
functions that you use when you're using your Glowforge. So, it has engravings. It has score lines around the edges and then obviously it's cut. It also uses proofgrade
medium draftboards, so one of your less expensive materials and one you get more of
in your proofgrade pack. You can also use this to actually measure but really, it's just fun to
have your first print done and have so many things involved in it. Next, I recommend everyone make for themselves a set of
honeycomb hold down pins. A warped material is going to happen. To make sure that your
laser can be most effective, you need to make sure that
everything is held down flat. That's what these honeycomb
pins will do for you. You can get this design
free from the forums. I will put a link below to
the one that I used here. And it's a quick cut, also really great to do
in your medium draftboard and anytime that you have scraps. Frequently, I will
place this in the middle of a board that I've used in
a hole that I've cut already, and sometimes the laser will
just go right through that. So having multiples of these made whenever you have scraps
is always a great idea. The third project that
I recommend you make is called the no-math ruler. What the heck is a no-math ruler? So the no-math ruler helps you to know where your
materials need to be placed when you want to remove your crumb tray and use something that is
taller than the crumb tray. So, on the no-math ruler, you can see that there's a check mark where the material needs to be lined up. You can put this in the
bed with your material and make sure that your material lines up between those two lines. Then you're able to use the
auto-focus on your machine. It's brilliant. This also is another great example of using score lines and engraving, so you can just get more
practice with that as well. You can make this out of anything. Again, use that medium
draftboard that you already have and get this done quickly, because I know that you're
gonna wanna engrave something that's taller than can fit onto your crumb tray really
quickly as you get started. The next project that I
recommend is also found in the community forums. So this is a power test. They will teach you how
to test your materials. So, not as critical obviously
for a proofgrade material, although it can teach you what you like in the looks of an engraving. This example is on Birch
plywood from Home Depot and you can see the darkest part of that engraving down there, versus the lightest part up at the top. In this example, I used speed 600 and each of those different colors represents a different level of power, from 10 all the way up to a hundred. While you will find lots and
lots of settings available to you on the internet,
those are our starting point. Every material is gonna
be slightly different. No eighth-inch material
is actually an eighth of an inch thick; just the same as no quarter-inch material is actually quite a quarter inch. And materials can vary; from one side of the material to the other and also within a batch. Sacrificing a small
amount of your material to do something like this
will really save you time and headaches as you go forward. By understanding the minimum
power that you can use to achieve the results that you want, you can speed up the time
that your engraving takes. This is gonna to be beneficial to you, especially when you're doing things that could take a really long time. You can shave minutes
off by reducing power but also by reducing lines per inch. I will place the link
for this file as well from the Glowforge forums
in the description box. And the final project that I recommend that every beginner complete is something that gets you excited
about the possibilities. I recommend doing something
with slots and tabs so that you can see how
you can take something instead of just stacking
to make something 3D, you can make something
that has three dimensions and can be functional within
your home or as a gift. One of the coolest designs
in the catalog right now is these little mini milk crates. I've cut this out of clear acrylic and they just fit
together with little tabs, no glue required. You could glue them,
but you don't have to. And another design that is made for these is this little box. So this holds the milk crates. And it's held together
with tabs and slots. Again, no glue required. I didn't glue this. You could. And your milk crate goes right in. This is a free design. So I suggest finding something within the Glowforge catalog
that really gets you excited; something that either challenges
what you think you can do or requires more of a build, or is just something you
know you wanna give away or use in your home. You want that project to
get you even more excited about all the things that
you can continue to do. I think something with slots and tabs that fit together can help
you to understand some of the possibilities of things
you might be able to make that you hadn't even thought of yet. Make sure that you're using
those premium design features right away so that you
understand if it's something that you wanna continue with. If you find that there's enough prints that you're gonna use within a month to cover off the cost of
what you would've spent on those designs, great. If you end up using the design features to customize projects, great. So your first five projects, again: gift of good measure, honeycomb pins, no-math ruler, power test, and something that makes you happy. I'd love to know down in the comments which of these projects is your favorite and if you've made any of them, or if there's something else that got you really excited
when you started thinking about why you might wanna use a Glowforge. If you've enjoyed this,
please like and subscribe. I don't want you to
miss any of the content that I'm putting out weekly. If you're on the fence
about getting a Glowforge, this video that you're
seeing play right here, will walk through a few things that I think are reasons you might want to get a Glowforge, and other reasons why it
might not be good for you. So go check that out.
