Laser cutting is easy…when there’s a lot of money. This blog post was titled “trial and error” because that’s what this project was for me: continuously testing settings and designs until I got what I wanted. Though I had never laser cut anything prior to this project and had zero experience with design work, the highly automated process meant the problem lied in accuracy rather than precision (making the correct decisions rather than executing them properly. Funny how the project turns out better when I’m less involved.

Dividing the total negative space by the number of cuts made yields the average material loss per cut.

Following the instructions, the first step was to determine the kerf of the laser cutter. Using the technique shown during training, ten parallel lines were cut in a 3″ box that allowed calculation of the average material loss from the total negative space from the cut which was 0.01 inches per cut.