Laser-Cut Lettering: How to Keep the Centers In

Cut the word DOOR out of a steel sign and the centers of the D, both O's and the R drop straight through the slats. Laser-cut lettering runs on one rule: any island inside a letter needs something tying it to the sheet.

How Do You Laser-Cut Letters So the Centers Don't Fall Out?

Add bridges, small strips of material that tie each letter's inner island to the rest of the sheet, which turns the font into a stencil. Size those bridges for the material thickness, not the font size.

An r/lasercutting user ran into the second half of that. Stencil fonts worked on big letters, but at small sizes the bridges shrank with the font and the centers broke away. Replies said to add bridges by hand, or offset the font until the strokes are thick enough.

Sizing bridges for laser-cut lettering

SendCutSend's text prep guide says bridges must "meet the minimum bridging width for the material thickness" you order. Its preflight list also wants holes and cutouts of at least 50% of material thickness on laser-cut parts. That's one supplier's rule, so ask us for our minimums for your material and gauge when you quote.

That's why scaling a stencil font fails. Shrink the text and the bridge shrinks with it, but the sheet didn't get any thinner.

What works better:

Set the text size first, then draw the bridges yourself at a fixed width.

Pick a bold font. Thin strokes and the tiny counter inside a lowercase e are where small text dies. That counter is just a small hole, so the limits in the smallest hole you can laser cut apply.

Cut the letters as separate parts if you want them solid. There are no islands to hold, though small loose letters can drop or tip during the cut; see when parts need tabs left in place.

Convert text to outlines before you export. SendCutSend's guide puts that first, because live font text isn't cut geometry.

Lettering at DigiForge

Our sheet metal service laser cuts cold rolled, galvanized, stainless and aluminum sheet "from 30 gauge up to 1 inch depending on material," with a listed tolerance of ±0.13 mm cut. Every letter adds cut length and pierces, and the price counts both: laser time "from cut length at the real feed rate" plus "pierce count." So a wordy sign costs more than its outline suggests. Send it as DXF or STEP.