Snowflake Coasters: Kerf Compensation

A flurry of snowflake coasters:

Snowflake Coaster - assortment
Snowflake Coaster – assortment

The two on the left are the original snowflakes with interchanged innards and, perforce, no kerf compensation.

The upper-left coaster has a wood flake surrounded by acrylic, which makes a sharp clack when you set a glass down on it. The wood surrounds emit a much more pleasing clunk.

The next two have 0.1 mm compensation applied to their acrylic snowflakes, which produces snug fit (original on the left, compensated on the right):

Snowflake Coasters - kerf corr 0.0 vs 0.1 mm
Snowflake Coasters – kerf corr 0.0 vs 0.1 mm

Applying 0.2 mm compensation makes the flakes impossible to push in, so the true compensation is somewhere just over 0.1 mm. I think you could optimize for a specific wood and acrylic combination, but, as with 3D printing, any change requires something different.

The little arrowhead shapes tend to get lost, so collecting them on a strip of tape while you’re hunting in the chip tray helps:

Snowflake Coasters - plywood cutouts
Snowflake Coasters – plywood cutouts

The dark flake on the right got a coat of walnut stain, as did the two darker coasters in the first picture. It looks better in person than in the photo, although Mary still thinks the lighter wood sets off the white acrylic just fine.

The two large (120 mm OD) coasters fit my 20 ounce mugs, with the Nanook Memorial Coaster in the lower right.