Missed this the first time around – thank you!
Had been meaning to make one myself after winging it a few too many times with poor results. My lazy self is very happy to see this 
Please forgive my stupidity, I’m just not following how this works. So I will try to explain what I don’t understand.
I have some medium draft board. I cut your gauge out of the draft board and then decide that the same piece of draft board fits into the 3.10 slot just where I want it. Now I go into Adobe Illustrator to hand draw a box with slots and tabs. Where does the 3.10mm measurement come into play with my drawing? Is this the size all slots on the box need to be? Is it slot width, or depth? Is this the only size these slots can be on the box? Can I double the 3.10 and make it 6.20mm so I don’t have as many slots on the box?
Sorry just confused and trying to understand.
Thanks
1 Like
You are still thinking slots and tabs - that is not what this is for.
This is for joining cross pieces at right angles to each other. Think of an X shape.
You draw the size that you measured on the gauge.
1 Like
AWESOME!! This is what I’ve been looking for for some time. Thank you for the hard work you put into it.
Very useful tool. Thanks for sharing.
2 Likes
I’m in the process of combining this into my own version of a material test template and I wanted to know what range of thicknesses to focus on. I’ve measured medium PG Acrylic as 2.8, PG Maple plywood as 3.5, PG Thick Acrylic 5.7, and some random 1/4 MDF as 6.2. So, I was planning to go from 2.6 to 3.6, in 0.05 steps, and 5.6 to 6.3, also in 0.05 steps. Are there any other measurements of “thick” materials that would help to inform my range?
can i ask what the one is with the circles is for I am new I am just getting started.
I dont think I’m understanding what youre saying. Are you saying to place the material im cutting in the grooves of the ruler? If my material fits in the 5.30 slot how does that change the kerf? I thought kerf was the amount of material the laser removed.
Once you have this piece cut out, you can take whatever round item you have and insert it into the various holes to find the fit that you like. Then simply read off the size, and use this size in whatever you are designing. The design “requested” the listed diameters, and the kerf took out whatever it took out. You are simply indexing on the result.
There is the possibility of have different materials for the slot and the insert. Use the “comb” pattern in the material you want the slot in. Then, take a sample of the other material and figure out which slot it fits in with the pressure you desire. This will tell you the size of slot you need to use in your design SW.
Kerf is the amount of material the laser removed. The resulting “comb” piece has slots that are actually going to be wider than the requested spacing. In your example, the design program made a slot that was 5.30. The laser actually cut a slot that was a bit larger than 5.30. But, if this is the slot that gives you the fit you want, all you need to know is that a requested slot of 5.30 produced it. You do not need to know the actual size of the 5.30 slot, which would tell you the kerf. That is why this is the “easy kerf gauge”.
3 Likes
This is really handy! Thanks
I am learning a lot from this thread! I avoided using anything I had to design that would include kerf because I was unsure where to start — so I would skip to another project I wanted to do. LOL Thanks for the explanation!
1 Like
Also, unless you need your design to be “squeaky” fit - really tight fit, you can just ignore kerg altogether.
You only really need to worry about it when you really need a precise fitting. If you don’t - or a bit of glue will do - then don’t worry about it.
1 Like
My suspicion is that if you use the measurement from your gauge as the material thickness and 0 for the kerf in Tabbed Box Maker, the tabs and slots will have the correct width/thickness, but the tabs will be too long and will extend beyond the slots by the length of the kerf. If you are making keyed dividers, the width of the holes for the divider will be correct, but the height will be too big.
1 Like
This has helped me greatly! Thanks 
2 Likes
Thank you very much!!
1 Like
would love to download this file but I am not sure where the download link is
Welcome to the forum.
The file is in the original post. Right click it and save as an SVG on your computer. The file looks like this:
3 Likes
got it, thank you so much