I wanted to make a keychain for my daughter BUT I am not sure what I did wrong. I have seen videos and it seems so easy until I tried it!! lol I cut out two of these in different colors of acrylic but as you can see in the picture it appears to have an open space so I cannot glue it. Why did this happen? In the other videos I saw they just cut and both acrylics fit perfect without these spaces. 
When material is cut by the laser, some of the material is destroyed. This is the kerf. Compare it to the void created by a saw when cutting a piece of wood. There is a lot of info in the forum about adjusting for the kerf if you search.
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Something that might help with the fit is to turn the piece you are inserting around. Normally one side is larger than the other and will fit better. This is due to the shape of the laser’s beam not being exactly vertical.
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You need to compensate for kerf, as materials are not “cut” by the laser, rather than vaporized, therefore part of the material between the “cut” pieces goes missing. Search for kerf compensation to learn how to make a smug fit in your work.
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Thank you all so much. I didn’t know about “kerf”. So happy we have this forum! I’ll look up Kerf and get learning.
Araceli 
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