Acrylic cut shrinkage question

[Xabbess]

I’ve worked with acrylic a lot and also mixed acrylic and wood…specifically insetting one of them tightly into another. I do extra testing when using PG wood with PG acrylic just because they are very different materials. This is a very small 2"x 1" test I did just yesterday. The kerf is .016" to fit these two pieces of 1/8" PG acrylic together.

@deirdrebeth’s suggestion was right on…that was how I first learned to figure kerf. Here is a box I made using acrylic and wood together.

Wood and acrylic box

I love the challenge of making boxes…but, prefer making them without finger joints. I wanted to make one for my son and his wife whom we will be visiting in Delaware in May. This is 4” high and 6” square made of PG med. cherry and PG thick black acrylic. Sort of like a box within a box, it’s two layers thick and is pretty hefty. A few weeks ago I was wanting to make a ‘pretty’ box and for whatever reason, was feeling great lack of ambition. I went to Mark Collier’s Etsey shop (Big Blue Laser De…