The laser cutter was a super fun tool to work with! The ability to quickly customize and cut out pieces was a very exciting skill to master.

To make my laser cut box, I started off laser cutting a kerf box using the kerf box file in Canvas. The result is shown below.

After moving all the pieces to one side, I measured the gap using calipers. You can see the resulting measurement in the image below.

The measurement reads 0.1850 inches. To get the kerf, I divided this number by 10. This means my calculated kerf was 0.0185 inches.

To test this kerf, I decided to cut two sides of the box. Initially I cut out two opposite sides, which didn’t help me test the kerf since these two pieces aren’t meant to fit together. When testing kerf, make sure you cut out two pieces that join to form a corner.

To generate the files for the box I went on en.makercase.com. I kept the dimensions at 4 x 4 x 4 inches. I entered a thickness of 0.19 inches, which I measured on my piece of wood using calipers. I selected finger joint and chose a finger size of 0.5225. See the image below which shows the entered measurements.

After entering the measurements I clicked “Download Box Plans.” After this, I navigated to “Kerf and Corner Compensation” –> “Kerf”. Then, I entered 0.0185in. See the image below which shows how to navigate to “Kerf.”

Next, I clicked “Download SVG.” I opened the .svg files in adobe illustrator, taking care to remove all the labels for the different sides of the box, and making sure each side of the box was a separate shape using the shape builder tool. See the image below which shows how the different sides of the box were labelled, before I deleted the labels.

Ready to cut, I powered on the Epilog Pro laser cutter and turned on the exhaust. I turned on the laser and jogged it to the middle of the area where I’d be cutting. Then I pressed “Auto Focus,” to focus the laser cutter. See the image below for a snippet of this process.

I put the wood in, using the thin metal blocks to weigh it down as shown below.

I cut two sides of the box using this kerf but found the pieces didn’t fit. Refer to the picture below to see the cutting settings I used.

After asking my peers, I found a kerf of 0.008 inches worked well for them. So I tried that kerf next. This time, I taped the wood piece using blue painter’s tape to avoid laser burn on my box. Luckily, using this kerf was a success🎉🥳. I added in my name and class details and the rice academic seal to be engraved on opposite sides of the box. See the completed box below.

Image of last used clean workspace.

A cost summary is included below.

Cost Type	Cost	Price	Source	Quantity	Total
Materials	Laser Cutting Wood	$0.105/sheet	Maker Flo Crafts	1 sheet	$0.105
Labor	Prototyping Engineer (You!)	$36.66/hr	US Bureau of Labor Statistics	3 hours	$109.98
Overhead	Facility Cost (Machine Time)	$50/hour	SA Laser	3 hours	$150