CNC routing vs laser cutting, on wood boards

Depth is the whole answer, and it is not a small difference.

A router bit can be told to go down 3mm, 12mm or 22mm and to vary that depth continuously across a surface. That is what makes a 3D relief, a parametric wave, a carved door and a fluted groove possible at all — every one of those is a controlled partial-depth cut, not a hole. The laser has one depth setting: through, or a shallow surface burn. There is no third option, and no way to carve a wave with light.

The router also cuts thick. We take boards from 4mm up to 30mm through, on beds up to 10ft × 5ft, and hold ±0.3mm across that whole area. Thickness is where a laser gives up long before a router does. And because the router cuts mechanically rather than thermally, the edge is clean pale timber that takes primer directly — no scorch line to sand or hide.

The limitation to design around is the bit radius. A 3mm cutter leaves a 1.5mm internal radius; a 6mm cutter leaves 3mm. Every internal corner in a routed part is rounded by exactly that much. On a jaali web or a rib nobody notices. On a sharp-cornered geometric inlay, they do.

What the laser does that the router cannot

Fineness, and true corners.

The CO2 beam is a fraction of a millimetre wide, so it cuts detail no bit can reach — a 1.5mm hole, a hairline separation between two motifs, a sharp internal corner with no radius at all. Delicate filigree, lace-like patterns, small interlocking kit parts and fine script all belong on the laser. It also engraves properly: raster-burning a photograph, a logo or a signature into a surface is something a router cannot approach, because a bit cannot make a mark that fine.

There is no tool pressure either, so parts too small or thin to be clamped down for a router — 4mm pieces the size of a coin — cut cleanly with nothing holding them but the sheet around them.

The trade-offs are real. Laser cutting MDF thickness tops out at about 10mm on our 100W machine, and it is a soft ceiling rather than a hard one: 4mm to 6mm cuts fast and clean, 8mm is slower, 10mm is slow with a noticeably darker edge, and past that the beam stops making it through cleanly whatever the power. Every laser edge is charred to some degree — usually fine, sometimes wanted, but it transfers onto hands and light fabrics unless it is sealed or painted. And WPC is not a laser material at all: it melts rather than cuts, so we do not run it.

Kerf and tolerance: the practical difference

Kerf is the width of material the cut removes, and it decides whether parts fit each other.

A router's kerf is the bit diameter — typically 3mm, 6mm or 12.7mm — which is large, entirely predictable, and compensated in the toolpath so the finished part lands on the drawn line. A laser's kerf is roughly 0.1mm to 0.3mm depending on power and thickness, small enough that people forget to account for it, which is exactly why laser-cut interlocking parts sometimes come out a touch loose.

Our working tolerance is ±0.3mm on the router across the full bed. The laser is finer on a small part but drifts more over a large sheet, because thermal expansion in the material itself becomes the limiting factor rather than the machine. So for a big panel that has to line up with another big panel, the router is more predictable — which is another reason architectural work stays on it.

Where a job genuinely needs both, we run both: the panel routed, the fine inserts lasered, and the two assembled here before dispatch.

The calls we make most often, so you can check yours against them before sending it.

• Router: parametric wall panels — depth varies across the surface, which only a bit can do.
• Router: 3D carved doors — 25mm to 30mm board and 8mm to 18mm of relief, both far outside laser range.
• Router: fluted and tambour panels — a flute is a partial-depth groove with a shaped section; a laser can only make a slot.
• Router: jaali screens in 12mm and 18mm, and anything free-standing or framed.
• Laser: filigree jaali in 4mm to 8mm, where the pattern is finer than a 4mm hole.
• Laser: DIY kits, flat-pack mandirs, layered lamps, small interlocking parts — thin board, tight tolerance, no clamping.
• Laser: engraved name plates, awards, logos and any raster engraving.
• Both: a routed signage panel with lasered lettering inset into it; a routed relief with lasered inlay.

If it is not obvious which side of the line your job falls on, send the drawing. We will tell you which machine it goes on and why before quoting — and if it is a laser job we will say so, even though the router work is the bigger part of what we do.