How I design kerfed finger joints (using Affinity Designer)

Thanks for this! I just started using Affinity Designer and I’m going to give this a try.

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[Preface: I felt this topic was worth bumping despite its age, because I stumbled upon it recently and it seriously helped me finally conceptualize finger joints.]

I think I just found a simpler method based on this process…at least, in Illustrator. Not sure if it applies to Affinity. Rather than stroke, expand, divide, and delete…you just use Offset Path and set the offset to 1/2 your kerf (the amount that’s lost from your actual material, since the other half goes to adjacent material. This instantly creates a new path with that 1/2 kerf addition wrapped around it (as though you added a stroke aligned to the outside vs center). It leaves your original path alone, so you can delete it or save it in a separate layer in case you need to change kerf adjustment for other material, etc. It also means no futzing with stroke widths, so you can keep those at whatever makes your work easiest to see or whatnot. The worst thing involved is some math of decimal fractions, but you can make Illustrator do that right in the dialogue box. Just type [kerf]/2 and it’ll do the math as soon as you click away from the field or press OK.

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Using Inkscape, setting the line with to the kerf, then stroke to path and break apart makes each line offset by the correct amount such that I am needing to use clamps to get it together, and a touch of the nail file to ease the corners just a bit to get it started.
:grin:

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I know. I have a 3D printer I have never used because I can’t get the software.

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