This past week I made a laser printed pressed fit box, and here is my journey on getting to my final product!

Measuring Kerf!

       

To begin, the first step was to measure the kerf of laser on the specific wood I used and under the settings that I chose! Kerf is the amount of wood that gets burned off with the strike of the laser. Kerf can vary depending on how the laser cutter is configured and what wood is being used.  The wood itself was about 1/5 of an inch and I set the laser cut at a frequency of 10, power 100, and speed of 10. To measure kerf, I cut out a box with 10 inner sticks, measured the gap between the sticks against one end of the box and the other end of the box, and divided that number by 10. This resulted in a kerf of 0.00835. Accounting for kerf, allows for the box to have a pressed fit finish.

Creating Box Template & Setting DESIGNS

The second stage was using a website to create a pressed fit box template based on my preferences. I set the box to be 4″x4″, with a .6 gap between teeth, and with a kerf of .00835. After downloading a template from the website, I edited the blank box on Inkscape to add my residential college crest, my name, the class, and the current semester! 

Testing Square

Once my design was set, I began with test cutting a .5″ square to make sure my initial configurations were still going to work. Thankfully, this little square was cut as desired!

AHHH I CUT OUt MY NAME!

 

I excitingly began to print my box. Everything was perfect, the etching of will rice, my name, and cutting flow until… the laser cutter began to cut out my already etched name! I was in shock, but it was too late to stop the print since by the time I noticed it had already cut half my name. I decided to put the box together to see if it truly was pressed fit. The result of the initial print is the box above, with my name cut out. It was pressed fit!!! I then reprinted the side with my name, pressed it in to box, and got my final product bellow.

FINAL PRODUCT

This was overall a great experience, and I now feel a lot more comfortable with using the laser printer!

Work Area Post Laser Cutting 🙂

Cost Analysis

• Wood: 5$
• Time (10$/hr): 3 x 10$ = 30$
• Laser Cutting (0.25/piece): 0.25 x (6 + 1+ 11) = 4.50$

Total Cost: 39.50$