How Are Craftaids Made?

[gunnerdoc]

I am really enjoying picking up leather working after some twenty years. I was an avid leather working artisan in high school. Life takes us down busy roads. I have begun again. It has been awesome. Does anyone out there in leather land know how the actual craftaids are made? Is it a laser etching onto a plastic delrin? Is it heat formed, or possibly pressure formed ridges? I am very interested in the actual process of making the scribed lines on the plastic sheets. Thank you for any input you might give in this matter.

Sincerely,

Gunner doc

[electrathon]

In production, plastic into a mold. In small scale, laser etched delrin.

[WyomingSlick]

I recently had an extended correspondance with Tandy/LF concerning Crataids and the decline in the quality of them. My concern was that while the older Craftaids are nearly perfectly transparent and easy to use because you could easily see which lines had transferred, and ..... if you missed some; they were easy to reregister. The newer Craftaids are merely translucent at best and not nealy as good in these respects.

The Tandy/LF spokesman stated the following:

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"You are correct on the difference between transparency and translucent.

I agree that the older transparent plastic Craftaids were much easier to use.

We are still working through processes to return to the transparent Craftaid.

The last surviving ORIGINAL Craftaid machine is soon to be assisted with a brand new
machine.

The machine needs four things to work perfect to make a good transparent Craftaid.

1.) correct and consistent heat.
2.) correct and constant pressure.
3.) a good smooth engraved plate.
4.) the right kind of plastic.

The new machine will stabilize the first two.

The plastic has been the issue for at least the past 10 years. Since children use
our Craftaids, the plastic MUST be phthalate free. It has been a struggle to locate
a government compliant plastic that meets the requirements for the Craftaid machine
and still be somewhat translucent.

We are still working on making a better Craftaid. We hope to have everything
resolved by this summer."

_________________________________________________________________

Still holdin' my breath !

[Bob Blea]

Grey Ghost Graphics offers a service where they will make a 'craftaid' out of your original artwork, but it's not transparent like the old craftaids either. As another option, you can do like the old saddle makers used to and make what is called a 'tapoff'. In a nutshell, you carve your design into a thick piece of leather with your swivel knife (no tooling needed, just the knife cuts) and then let that dry. Seal it with good coats of a lacquer (Neat Lac, Clear Lac, Wyosheen, etc.) and let dry again. You can now place this home made 'craft aid' on top of cased leather and use a hammer to 'tap' the pattern into the cased leather. You end up with a mirror image of your original carving but it does work.

Bob