Basic
Advanced
Additional Information
Basic
The 'job' is the general task you are trying to do. This will be a combination of the lower/reciever you wish to engrave, followed by the side and starting location.
Jobs below the 'PreRelease' heading are only available to Patreon supporters.
Job
1911 (Left)
1911 (Right)
AR15 Dust Cover (Closed)
AR15 Dust Cover (Open)
AR15 FCG (Left)
AR15 FCG (Right)
AR15 Mag Well (Left)
AR15 Mag Well (Right)
AR15 Selector (Left)
AR15 Selector (Right)
MDK
PF45
PF940C
PF940CL
PF940SC
PF940v2
PreRelease
AR10 Mag Well (Left)
AR10 Mag Well (Right)
AR10 Selector (Left)
AR10 Selector (Right)
GGD UniversalAR15 (Left)
GGD UniversalAR15 (Right)
NFA C45 (Left)
NFA C45 (Right)
NFA C9 (Left)
NFA C9 (Right)
Check this box if you are using a GG1. This will make an attempt to position the spindle in a better location to be able to access more of the work area without hitting limits.
If you are running a GG1, strongly consider upgrading to a GG3. It's worth it.
GG1
Here you select if you are wanting to enter text to engrave or if you'd like to engrave an image or images which you will supply.
Input
Text
Image
You enter your lines of text here. Skipping the first line will NOT move the engraving down. If you want to adjust the position of the engraving, use the X and Y offset values to move the engraving either horizontally or vertically.
If you want space between lines, you can use the | character to force an new line.
Line 1
Image
Line 2
Semi
Line 3
Safe
Line 4
Here you enter the desired height for the image you want to engrave. The width will scale correctly.
Image Height
mm
Line 5
Here is where you select the 'justification' of the text. It only applies if you have more than one line of text. You can center the lines or have them justified to the left or right.
Justify
Left
Center
Right
This is the font you'd like to use to render your text.
Font
Arial
Arial - Bold
Oswald
Engineer Efficient
Roboto - Bold
LiberationMono - Bold
Hack
Liberation
Calibri
Times New Roman
Hack - Bold
Old English
Oswald - Bold
Roboto
Steel Fish
Comic Sans
Ancient Greek
Kunstler
Galactic
Blade
Here is where you enter the height you'd like for your text.
Font Height
2.5mm
This value has potential two meanings.
In trace mode, this is the depth the bit will go to and then trace the image or text as desired.
In VCarve mode, this is the maximum depth the bit will hit. The gcode will leverage the angle of the bit along with the maximum allowed depth to determine the optimal tool path.
Depth
0.6mm
There are two modes here.
The preferred is 'vcarve', 'vcarve' leverages the angle of the cutting tool to give you the best possible result as far as a clean and accurate image being engraved and sharp corners.
We offer 'trace' as an alternative that will result in much faster jobs, but the results won't be as sharp.
Mode
VCarve
Trace
This is the shape of the tip of your bit when using VCarve. Typically this is a VBit.
If 'FLAT' is selected, leave the endmill in when it's time for the tool change.
Bit Shape
VBit
Ball
Flat
This is the angle of the engraving bit. It's critical to figureing out how much material will be removed at a given depth.
VBitAngle
20
30
45
60
90
Use this to shift your engraving up or down. A positive number will move up and a negative number will move down.
X Offset
mm
Use this to shift your engraving right or left. A positive number will move it to the right and a negative number will move it to the left.
Y Offset
mm
*** Currently only Normal is enabled due to a suspected issue occasionally resulting in undesired spindle movements. It'll be back when it is safe to do so. ***
Only Normal is usable for non-Patreon supporters. It's not currently usable for the selector marking engraving jobs.
With 'Normal', the surface will be probed one time at the beginning of the job. This will be determined to be the flat and level plane of the surface to be engraved.
With the higher probing types, instead of probing one time at the very beginning of the job, it will do a probe sequence before engraving. It'll be CRITICAL to WATCH the probing. If you see it touch off on any point that is unexpected, and not part of the surface you want to engrave, DO NOT MOVE FORWARD to the next step. It will result in something exciting.
Otherwise, if all goes as expected what you will see is that the engraving job will follow the plane of the surface. Which means if the surface of the work piece isn't even, it'll roll with it. If your mounting isn't perfectly level, not big deal. It'll make it work.
It is important to note that the 'Extra' probing will only probe in locations that there will be engraving. This means that there isn't risk of marking the finish of the lower in a place you wouldn't want to.
Spicy mode adds some extra probe points for a better picture of the contour ... but does touch places that won't be engraved and thus has the risk of scratching the surface.
Probe Type
Normal
This determines if the engraving bit will be spinning during the probing process. We recommend this setting because it reduces the risk of damaging the engraving bit if it needs to push too hard to get good conduction.
There is slight risk of marking the lower during probing but it is negligible compared to tip damage therefore we have this set to default.
You have the ability to deselect this option, knowing the risk mitigation to tip damage is reduced.
Do what you want. I'm not your mom.
Spinning Probe
Advanced
With this checked, you will get an image inlay rather than an outline. Both options are accurately reflected in the preview.
Image Fill
This determines the spacing between lines of text.
Line Spacing
1.5
This determines the spacing between characters in words.
Character Spacing
45
This determines the spacing between words in a line of text.
Word Spacing
100
Cut Depth per pass
0.2mm
Last Pass Depth
0.01mm
This is the diameter of the cleanup bit.
Cleanup Diameter
6.35
This is the diameter of the engraving bit. The default is for the standard 1/4in engraving bits I get from GGD-Store.com.
Bit Diameter
6.35mm
Cleanup
Main Perimeter
Main Vertical
Main Horizontal
VBit Perimeter
VBit Vertical
VBit Horizontal
About GhostWriter
This is me.
Checking this box will result in the STLs for the available engraving jigs to be included inside the project file.
Include STLs
If this job is saved and you are a Patreon subscriber, this job data can be saved to be used as an additional layer in future jobs. All of the jobs must be using the same base job.
Look under the 'Additional Information' tab for more information on how exactly to use this.
Save job
We need your email address to send you your file. If you are a Patreon subscriber this email address needs to match the Patreon account in order to get the additional files that the subscription offers up.
Email
The token field is multi purpose. There are ways to get tokens to use here for additional files and it is also used by Patreon subscribers for layered jobs to make your engraving process go by more quickly and easily.
Token
