Kerf and Corner Compensation

[hdotb18]

For wood boxes with fingers, was wondering what the best Kerf and corner compensation is setting for the glowforge…looking for a nice tight fit…Thanks.

[reynoso]

The best kerf adjustment comes from testing. Each material is different and even the humidity and temperature make it change on wood products.

This topic has been extensively discussed in this forum. Please seatch for @evansd2 excellent post on this and other valuable topics.

Common problems/questions

Just added #4a, links to the Glowforge safety pages for each model.

And this

HOWTO: Kerf Measurement and Jig

Understanding the interaction between your tools and materials is critical to making parts that fit well. A key metric to understand is kerf: the amount of material removed by a cut. Compensating for kerf is the difference between joints that are sloppy or that fit with just the right amount of force. Even though a laser cutter removes only a fine amount of material, that slight difference in dimension between your plans and the physical material adds up. It’s worth noting that your kerf can…

[deirdrebeth]

@reynoso

comes from testing

100% this. You can figure out a kind of default for your machine for a category of materials, but for a “nice tight fit” your going to want to test specifically that material at the time you’re working with it.

I find creating a small piece with just a few slots and tabs gives me the correct answer quickly and without losing much material!

This is a great test from completely unknown:

More compact version of the “Template to NOT measure the kerf”

To save material, I made a new, more compact version of the “Template to NOT measure the kerf”. It fits along the side edge of the cutting area, and has both metric and imperial markings. The first version has separate pieces: [tightness-test-compact] The second has them joined zipper-style for easier handling. [tightness-test-compact-zipper] The final version is more fine-grained, focusing on a narrower range of kerf measurements, because in practice, I find it’s almost always in the .09m…

[timjedwards]

As they’ve said, test! That said, I always start testing from .007in.

[Xabbess]

@timjedwards

I always start testing from .007in.

Same for me