Thickness of draftboard vs plywood?

Just got my GF after 835 days of waiting and I love it. Today I made a mini loom using an .svg file from Dan Chen: http://danchen.work/loom/

The pattern calls for 1/8” material so I used PG medium draftboard as a first pass. Sadly, the material is just a smidge too thick for the tabs to fit into the slots so I couldn’t assemble it without some aggressive sanding.

Appreciate advice on:
1)is the 1/8 maple plywood the same thickness as the medium draftboard? I don’t have calipers but side by side it looked a tiny bit thinner.

  1. Any way to adjust the tab or slot width in the GF interface, or am I looking at doing back to the original .svg and trying to re-jigger the whole thing?

Thanks!
Sarah

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So one of the first things to do is get a pair of calipers. As you’ve found, the PG ply and draftboard are going to come in “thick” compared to 1/8 (.125)

The acrylics have come in pretty much dead accurate at .125.

I’d suggest modifying the design if you want to use plywood, or try one of the acrylic sheets after you measure the thickness if you don’t want to make changes to the design.

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Welcome to the trial and error room. I found out about thicknesses when I made the chess set from the catalog. I used thinner material because that was what I had, The pieces were too sloppy in the slots but we all learn to adapt.

I’ve only gone for a friction fit once, normally I use an adhesive, so for me all of the medium is close enough to being the same. I use 3.3mm in my designs, but I do think the draft board may be a smidgen thicker on average than the plywood. Also, in my measurements the same piece of proofgrade material will vary by a few thousandths across its surface. But you have nailed the bane of laser making on the head: material thickness. Uniform and consistent thickness is the most important item in sharing plans for laser cut projects. I mainly make stuff from my own designs, but if the vast consumer masses are going to jump on board this laser thing uniform material thicknesses are going to have to become common. Anyone can tweak speed and power settings to get a good cut, but not everyone can tweak a design for thickness.

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