About

slicekey.com is an editorial publication about cutting yield and material loss. The guides explain the slot a cut removes, how many finished pieces the stock can still yield, and what that leftover costs. The stock in these pages is wood, sheet metal, acrylic, glass, foam, stone, fabric, label stock, pipe, bar, extrusion, coil, and roll. The processes are a saw, a laser, a plasma arc, a waterjet, and slitting.

What a guide stays with

Each guide stays with one stock, one process, or one job. A figure stays with the machine and the thickness the article names. A kerf width is not the finished part size on the drawing. A catalog figure whose material, thickness, process, and machine are not named is not a number to use on a batch. A saw, a laser, a plasma arc, and a waterjet leave different slots. A press-fit or a joint clearance is a second measurement. It is not kerf compensation.

The editorial team would rather leave a width blank than copy one millimeter onto every page.

What this publication is not

slicekey.com is not a machine maker, not a materials supplier, not a job shop, and not a standards body. Nothing here nests a job, runs a cutter, or stands in for the person at the machine. Reading a page does not create a professional relationship.

The publication does not sell equipment and it does not rank a brand. About, Contact, Safety, Privacy, the cookie and cache policy, Disclaimer, and Terms do not carry ads. If an advertisement appears on an article later, that advertisement is not a recommendation from the editorial team.

Who writes

The guides are published by the Editorial Team. The byline is the team. The team writes general explanations. It does not nest a job, run a cutter, or answer a shop emergency by email.

Pictures

Photographs are used only under public domain, CC0, CC BY, or CC BY-SA, with the creator credited. A picture that is not cleared, or that carries a non-commercial limit the publication cannot meet, is not used. A picture is an illustration of the subject. It is not proof about the reader’s own stock, nest, or machine.

Corrections

If a kerf, a yield, a process, or a description is wrong for the stock or the job the article names, write to [email protected] and include the page address. Say what is wrong. Corrections are for the published text. They are not a way to get a nest, a quote, or a machine setting for a job that is still on the table.

The Safety page states the limits that apply across the guides. The Disclaimer states the limits of the writing. The Contact page says which messages the address can take.