Kerf bending plywood is a great way to lend elegance to a woodworking project, but bending boards isn’t without difficulty. Arcs require trial and error to get just right, and if you want a wild curve like an oval or parabola, you could be at it for a while. If that’s the kind of thing that keeps you up at night, then good news, Michael Schiebler released a tool to make your life a lot easier.
Kerf Bend Wizard is the cleanest and most powerful kerf bending calculator I’ve seen by a long shot. Michael built it to help non-math wizards get precise, complex results without a bunch of trial and error. Just tell it about your tool and material, and draw or upload your desired curve. Kerf Bend Wizard will generate a cut pattern in a DXF. He’s already used it to create some wild designs, including a tapered helix.
Kerf-bent helicoid. The spirals are oval, not circular. Photography by Michael Schiebler
Apparently, he had a lot of requests for generic developable surfaces.
“It’s something that a lot of people ask about (without being prompted) and it’s something that has rarely been explored since without the tools I developed it would be almost impossible to do. Some forays into the topic exist in scientific literature but using approximated and proprietary methods that were never replicated by hobbyists.”
Screenshot of a developable surface in CAM“This is my first attempt at making a developable surface. It involves placing the cuts in a peculiar manner and using an endmill to shape the outer edge. The cuts are parallel to the generatrices of the surface.”
Michael developed the tool at Artwood Acadamy near Milan and analyzed the results with a Hexagon AS1 3D scanner to verify it works as intended.
Michael scanning a spline test
The original curve (top) beside a render of the scanned 3D mesh.
Analyzed comparison of original curve vs scanned result
While handling tough curves was the main goal, he paid a lot of attention to the UI, and it shows. The tests were cut on a CNC machine, but the cuts are straight, so you could use the tool to make a template for a saw. And make sure you have a good miter gauge before making your own helix.
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