Reference starting settings, honest tutorials and plain-English safety guidance for diode, CO2, fibre and UV lasers. Written for your first coaster and your thousandth commission.
The test grid is lesson one here. Ten minutes of scrap beats an hour of guessing.
Diode, CO2, fibre or UV — each wavelength has strengths and hard limits. See what yours can do per material.
Every machine, lens and material batch is different. Tutorial 1 teaches the one habit that makes every setting on this site work for your machine.
Coasters, keyrings, a chopping board, your first metal mark. Ten projects, each teaching one skill you'll use forever.
The most important project you'll ever run — a grid of squares worth more than any chart on the internet, because it's from your machine.
Read the tutorialTUTORIAL 02 / 10The classic first real project. Teaches engrave-before-cut, masking, and finishing — cheap, quick, giftable.
Read the tutorialTUTORIAL 03 / 10Maximum wow per effort. Slate engraves beautifully on even a small diode, and the oil-finish trick doubles the contrast.
Read the tutorial SAFETYRoughly half chlorine by weight — the most dangerous material a beginner can put in a laser, and the one that hides everywhere.
Read the safety guide MATERIAL GUIDEThe maximum-wow beginner material: settings for diode and CO2, the centre-focus trick, and the oil finish.
See the settings MATERIAL GUIDEFibre etching and black annealing, plus the marking-compound route for diode and CO2 owners.
See the settings