Pin layout
Even spacing◀ Bottom edge · top line = outside face of the front
Cut sheets
Cut card
Share and Illustrator
How the geometry works
- The finest bit that reaches through the side becomes the tail finishing bit. The narrowest tail socket is that bit plus the slot clearance. The pins at the outside face are just wider than that, so the taper keeps narrowing a little past the board end before the socket turns into a straight slot.
- You set the number of full pins, and two edge half-pins are added. With even spacing, the pin centres are equally spaced, with the end spacings measured from the side’s edges. Tails take the width left between pins, and their narrow end follows from the pin angle and the front’s thickness. The most pins shown is the limit where every tail still clears your pin bit.
- Tail sockets are cut with up to three bits, coarse to fine: a Pocket with the largest bit no wider than half the socket, an optional middle bit, and the finishing bit. Pins use the largest bit that fits, as a Pocket followed by an Outside pass with a large negative offset.
- Pass counts come from simulating each cut on a fine grid. For every bit, the page finds how wide a strip of stock that bit still has to remove after the earlier bits. A full-width cut uses that bit's depth per pass. A lighter cut gets proportionally deeper passes, capped at the cutting length. The narrow slot at the board end is always a full-width cut for the finishing bit.
- The anchors sit at the bottom-edge corner. One tails file serves both sides with the left face up. The left and right pins files are mirror images.