Understanding Kerf can help you complete your laser cut projects successfully!
What is Kerf?
Whenever you cut an object with a laser there will naturally be some material that gets lost. The material lost is known as kerf.
The wider the range of the laser, the more material that may be lost during the cut.
Why does it matter?
Although the amount of material that is lost is usually small, it can make a big difference especially in projects where there are pieces that need to be a precise size in order to fit together properly.
This is also complicated by the the fact that each machine, depending on setup will have a different amount of kerf, and that the amount of kerf will also depend on both the type and thickness of material.
Therefore, you may need to compensate for this loss.
What can you do?
If you feel that kerf may be impacting your project, check your software settings for a Kerf Offset function or something similar. The function will make the cut lines larger (or smaller) than the original shape so that it is cut to the exact size.