Understanding material thickness

Finger joints, divider slots and lid lips are all generated from the material thickness. A sheet sold as 3 mm often measures 2.7–3.3 mm — the difference between a snug joint and a box that falls apart or will not close.

Measure it

1. Use digital or vernier calipers; a ruler is not precise enough.
2. Measure in three or four places on the sheet you will actually cut, away from the edges.
3. Take the average, rounded to 0.05 mm.

Enter it

With nothing selected, open Material in the right panel:

• Thickness — the nominal value, which sets the material profile.
• Measured — your caliper reading. When set, every joint and slot uses it and regenerates immediately.

A component with its own sheet can override this with Own thickness.

Good to know

• The measured value must stay within ±40 % of the nominal thickness; a larger difference is treated as a typing mistake and ignored.
• Sheets vary. If yours do, measure each and cut a test corner before the full job.
• After a purchase, changing the thickness creates a new revision. The files you bought stay exactly as they were.

How thickness enters the geometry

Notch depth equals the thickness used; divider slot width equals thickness plus the slot clearance; the lid lip is inset by thickness plus lid clearance. The thickness used is printed in the component's assumptions and in the instructions.