Hello,
Im interested in cutting out knife blanks using the WAZER. My question is how do I compensate for the thru holes on the handle to insert the rivets?
Do I need to factor in the kerf into my design?
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Hey Marcus! This is a great question. The WAZER kerf is on average approximately 1.2mm or 0.047 inches.
Thinking of how your design lines will be cut with WAZER can be thought of as drawing with a thick marker pen 
. Imagine you are drawing circles with a thick tip marker pen, as the circle get smaller and smaller, the pen stroke gets closer and closer, until the stroke on each side of circle touches. At that point the cut will effectively be a dot, any circles smaller than this diameter will also effectively be a dot.
Considering the two points made above, we can see that while using a “outside” cut path the smallest hole WAM think worth using the gantry system will be ~ 2x the stream diameter, that is 2mm-2.5mm. Anything smaller than that will be treated as an auto-pierce because anything smaller will be non-distinguishable as anything other than a dot. This rationale also applies to the center-line cut path.
The biggest factor to keep in mind is the cutting path. Typically we always recommend using the “Outside” path to keep cuts as close to the design as possible. If you are working with holes in your design are bigger than 2.4mm (kerf doubled), no factors need to be accounted for 
I know this was a lot of information, but I love sharing and showing as much information as possible. I think kerf and the factors that go into managing it are so cool!
Thank you Alex for that information. It was very useful and your explanation is very clear.
I have an additional question about the “Outside” path.
What if I would like to do an outside path for the outer profile but I also have internal features such as a hole?
Wouldnt that result in a larger hole than in my design?
The WAM software takes any internal features into account automatically. It is vital to cut on the outside of all external features and then cut inside any internal features to make sure the cut-out pieces are true to design.
The pic above is pulled from WAM. The “Outside” cut path option is highlighted. As you can see, the design piece is the white, while the cut path of the nozzle is green.
WAM automatically accounts for the average kerf size and offsets the distance needed to cut your piece as close to design as possible. If you are looking for more in-depth information, I recommend reading our article found here!