I'm new to leatherwork so I was wanting to get some advice on a belt that I am working on. First off, when cutting my rawhide which I am doing while it is dry, I am also using a Hercules HRC-100 which is a powered fabric cutter but it is also more than capable of cutting up to 1" leather. Is this something that would be considered taboo? Also, when clamping my leather end where the buckle rests, I am just using a simple hand-clamp instead of leather clips. Again, is this adequate or another practice that is not suited for leatherwork? My thought is that using tools that were not necessarily designed for leatherwork but achieve the same result is perfectly fine but I wanted to see what experts in the space thought.
