For cutting wood veneer, what is a reasonable expectation for kerf width, and does any one of the Asmbly lasers have a narrower kerf than the others?
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I know at least the big lasers have a p touch label with the kerf on the front.
You can offset your shape in illustrator Inkscape or light burn to account for that, should you need precision
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Thanks for the tip on the labels!
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Yep, printed on the lasers.
It does change a bit with material, thickness, and method, but not by all that much.
Kerf is easily calibrated by just cutting a 20mm x 20mm square. Measure with calipers. The kerf is 1/2 that difference. Kerf may be slightly higher at the top of the cut than the bottom.
Kerf can be accounted for in several ways.
There is a “kerf offset” in the layer settings. It can only operate on closed shapes, and will just quietly ignore anything which is not closed.
You do get to set the sign of the kerf, in or out. That applies to the outermost shape. If there is another closed shape inside that, it will alternate. So, most commonly you have an object with holes in in, the outer perimeter needs to move outwards, while the holes need to move inwards.
One downside here, changing things around can have unanticipated consequences. For example, if you change the plan and deselect the outer perimeter to just cut the holes, then the kerfing will go in the wrong direction.
The other option is to turn off kerf offset and use Offset Shapes to tweak the sizes in the design
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I appreciate the detailed explanation and options for experimenting!
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