Kerf width table

Beyond the Manual
1

I always find myself trying to search for kerf width values with little luck, so I decided to make a table of measured kerf widths using BobV’s Kerf Measurement Jig (HOWTO: Kerf Measurement and Jig) for the materials that I use frequently and happen to have on hand. Here are my results:
Kerf values.xlsx (9.2 KB)
Kerf Values.pdf (209.1 KB)

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Thanks for sharing your experience. I am sure many will find this useful.

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Thanks! What I tend to use, namely ~0.2 mm, looks like it’s close. :sunglasses:

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Thank you very much. Kerfs always get the best of me.

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Thanks for testing and sharing this!!

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So I have maybe bad news for you here: kerf width is dependent on settings.

Anyone who tries to use this data for themselves for highly precise applications is likely to find it to be inaccurate.

As a side note I suspect your Baltic birch settings are overpowered. 0.008” is quite wide, I routinely use 0.006 for very demanding tolerance applications like boxes and inlay. If you’re seeing a true 0.008 I suspect you’re using “too much power”.

(In quotes because of it works and you’re happy with it then it’s the perfect power. However if you use just enough power to get through it you’ll get less charring and flashback, and your edges will be a nice light brown instead of dark black. It’s a bit of personal preference here but in general using just enough power to reliably cut is the way to go.)

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Good points. I use the default PG settings for the PG material, and the PG Maple plywood settings for the birch. I do not think the settings for the birch were too high for what I have, because it does not cut all the way through the bottom masking.

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Nice. Sounds like you got it dialed in.

I’ve found that baltic varies enough that whenever I get new stock I re-test and color code it so I know that this is the (for example) blue-green batch and it uses x speed and y power. To color code, first I stack it carefully and draw a line down the edges of the stack with colored sharpies. I usually do 2 lines of different colors, that way I can always tell at a glance what batch I’m using.

I’ve seen “barely cut” settings vary between speed 220 and 190 at full power. I have considered trying to relate that to thickness of the piece, but never gotten to testing that. (thicknesses vary between 0.118 and 0.130. BB is a bit flaky.)

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