Goal for jigsaw kerf?

How much kerf do you all think is acceptable for a picture jigsaw puzzle? How narrow can it be realistically made?

Given the advice to cut the puzzle upside down, I can usually get it down to around 0.005", sometimes 0.003", for the picture side. Trying to decrease power further leaves no margin of error for slight variations in cutting depth; you end up with too many pieces with cut failures.

I think acceptable kerf comes down to piece count, piece design and piece size. The kerf is pretty small but the more cuts you make the more they add up. If you go too complex and cut/piece count goes up then the fit will get wigglier and wigglier if that makes sense.

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The biggest determining factor is going to be the 2” lens. You can only get the spot size down so far. I cut with a 1.5” lens now on both the cardboard and the 3mm Baltic birch, which gets it down pretty small.

(Wood puzzle cutting at the moment)

My observation is that cutting upside down will leave you with a looser fitting piece despite reducing the perceived kerf on the face. While it meets well at the face, everything hidden below that is wider. It just doesn’t fit as well.

So, are you asking solely from an aesthetics point of view, or a functionality point of view?

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So, are you asking solely from an aesthetics point of view, or a functionality point of view?

Both, I guess. Aesthetically, smaller kerf makes the picture more visible. Functionally, when pieces wiggle too much, it can make it harder to fit other pieces in, and it’s hard to pick up more than one piece at a time.

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