RockyAussie

Sorry guys. I have been in this all weekend and with the fitting of all the T nuts in place and drilling the holes,sanding and polishing the acrylic edges,wiring in external switches, fitting the suction motor and more shelves along with taking pictures and videos of the testing I just ran out of time. For now here's a couple of pictures of where I am up to. Good news is that it all works and well and the video of the testing looks good. I just have to find some time to do the video editing and uploads now. This first one shows where I am applying the foam around 3 sides to direct the air flow. The video will show that later. Will get more of the building progress pictures through later this week along with the videos.

Thanks for sharing your input on your experience with owning a C02 laser. I am glad to see a positive reflection on owning one and I would love to see more if you have any on how they are useful in the leather working world. It was not my intention to rubbish a Co2 by any means, as I said there were many reasons I felt best to go with a diode laser to start with. Firstly at the time when I researched into this most people that found their lasers useful with leather were seldom using them for cutting. By far most are using them for engraving purposes. Those that were using for cutting in a business like way were using 100 watt upwards and the prices and the size at that point goes up into the $thousands pretty quick. 2. The cutting size of 8"x12" (96sq") that most of the 40 watt lasers you mention come with is way too small for my uses. The little A3 Eleksmaker can use 12"x 15" (180sq") and that is not really big enough either but is nearly twice as big. A lot of my bag patterns go bigger than A3 size. When I found out I could cut card stock with the little laser I was pretty much hooked as that meant when I drew a pattern up in my cad program I did not have to print it out and then cut it out to recut it out again on leather by hand. The little A3 laser set me back about $300AU to start and once it showed its potential and paid for itself in about a week making product boxes I decided to spend another $300 thereabout to make the cutting area 27"x35"(945sq") There is a few dollars in that for an extractor fan ducting etc that should all go in place this weekend along with the acrylic shrouding. Already before this I cut enough product boxes in the last 2 days to pay for the extra cost.A lot of the pieces in these boxes are bigger than A4. 3.There are no mirrors to line up + focus or keep regularly clean and no water pump that needs distilled water or chiller. Mostly cutting the leather leaves some charcoal residue that can be time consuming to clean up and is therefore a reason not to consider it for any production type work. Even the best powerful lasers still have this problem and in most cases if you are doing production like me you would use a clicker press and knives. The cutting time per piece is around 30 seconds from 1 piece to the next. Also knives tend to push the leather down and give a better look to the job. Getting knives made can sometimes be expensive and doing some sales testing on a product that is laser cut can be of help and in some cases like this pattern of an non stitched product shown below the knifing costs would be very expensive and you would really want to be sure its a seller by trialling with a laser first. AS for the life of the diode laser ....this depends as well on how hot and long you are going to run it but this link was the first one google showed me when I asked how long does a diode laser last? https://www.myomron.com/index.php?action=kb&article=673 If I get 50,000 hours I would be I am working on a cooling fan over the top of the laser at any rate with the idea of using the blow by to give some air assist at the same time. Will post that when done. Here is a couple of the progress pictures so far. This one shows the size difference This one shows the wiring and everything else is working as it should so far. I will have some more pictures and news Monday I think.

I think you would be lucky to not have troubles even if you ran a pipe cleaner through every hole before the needle. My experience with the charcoal produced when cutting with a laser says it is just not the way to with any thread that can absorb it. I have tried putting several coats over surface charcoal to see just what it would take to seal it and came up with no good answers really. Trying to seal the holes would be near to impossible so my thoughts are to go to the chisel method instead. If your laser can operate with a dxf file in a program like T2 laser you could set it up with green lines turned down to just etch the surface to give you a guide line to follow if it was the trouble.

Thanks for sharing that info Jimi some interesting good stuff there.

Thanks for the kind thoughts and may God smile on you always.

Looks Dam nice to me Damon and extra strong.

I would say if your holes are laser burnt holes every time you put the thread through a hole it will be picking up a fresh piece of charcoal to dirty the thread. I guess you could try black thread but other than that I would try nylon or poly to see if they don't absorb the charcoal. Let us know how you go.

A door should be long enough...set it up so you have loose pins in the hinges and lay it down on some horses when you need it. The steel could stay hung up with it as well.

Happy to help @Big Sioux Saddlery. Note that the steel is just mild steel and with a less than level top surface it will flex up and down with the table curves a bit. This end gets done up tight but can still swivel a bit Note that it hangs over the edge a little maybe 1/8" The other end just buts up to a screw and depending on the leather thickness may want adjusting up or down a bit. The leather split at the back I just glue down temporary and it is an important part to stop the hide from sliding around. Around a 1/4" back from the steel should work alright The table is just an 8x4' chipboard with a bit of HDPE sheet on top. The rest is just 1+1/4" boxing I welded up.

Hey Murray, I have a few shipping containers that I have found quite useful for storage. I cant say about your weather over there but over here they get pretty hot at times and in particular are prone to rust out in the corners where other shipping containers have been placed on top. If you can see on the inside they are dented down get a jack a push them up as they hold water and will rust eventually.The best thing for insulation and weather proofing is to put roof sheeting over the top.That keeps it cooler than anything else I've tried. In the following photo you can see a brown roof I have not as yet sheeted and sure enough it leaks. If you want some more workspace... here's a few more pics of a shed I made to go between 2 of the 40' containers. Took me about 2 weeks mostly by myself. Note in this following picture the apex connector I had laser cut out and folded so that they interlock over the C channel I used 4" angle iron about 3/8" thick where I bolted to the container walls. I am happy to say a couple of years back it went through a category 4 cyclone with no harm. It did crack and break nearly every tree in the front paddock you see in the first picture though. I planted all of them some years back amongst other things to help make my business as carbon neutral as possible.

Nothin more than you can see here theraputic ?? comes later

People on this here forum would chuck me off if they see how I sharpen it ...but it does take less than a minute and doing a hundred at a time I only need to polish it on the rag wheel maybe 2 sometimes 3 times.

Your welcome

Is that how they make them dreadlocks?

No, I believe as you do that there is an unacceptable risk with it being open as it is and is one of the reasons that I have made the big one in the box shape I have. I had ordered before Christmas black acrylic sheeting cut to size for it but unfortunately they did not get it done and I will have to wait a couple of more weeks now before they get back to work. This will also act to keep the structure more square and rigid. Fans,extractors, Z axis lifters, bigger diode lasers are all on the drawing board yet to do.

Pretty low and depends on the leather type ...mostly I go at about 1/2mm at a time but I have accidental cut through about 2mm in about a second before I realised it was not moving. If you turn it on without the safety button on, it starts at full power if it is not being controlled by from the computer program.You can set it in the program to do how ever many passes you like. I am playing around with a 5 watt one at the moment that cost me just over a hundred and it burnt a hole in a 3 ply cardboard box about 12" away before I even realised it. That was a shock and a fast learning lesson.

Here's a couple of pictures of the prints...note: the mounting block around the motor to the cable chain and the piece that alows you to slide along the channel to get the chain positioned perfectly. e Below a couple of simple little corner block holders that allow the control board to be held and slide positioned into place.

Keep a look out as I already discovered way more uses than I every thought to start with and that new printer of yours would come in handy on making one for yourself. I printed up several pieces in the big one I am making like the cable chain holders and some corner fittings and that helps keep the cost way down. I am hoping to try it out on cutting some 3mm black acrylic soon as I believe that is possible.

After finding out as much as I could about lasers and their practical uses with leather I decided to go with a small diode laser. This video is the first in a series I hope to share with you as I go in finding ways and developing methods and improvements related to leather working and laser. Many reasons along with cost led me to go with the small diode laser to start with and I can honestly say I have been surprised and delighted on my findings so far. The CO2 lasers that at first looked so tempting lost their gleam when I discovered that the tubes that they come with will often fail within 6 months or less and a good quality honestly branded Reci tube will likely cost around a $1000 or more. Another finding is that the small dot of a 2500mw laser gives excellent detail for fine engraving (burning in) and along with a program called 2T Laser it is possible to get a dxf file once done in a decent Cad program to cut with different power and time settings all in the one file. I have had some success with cutting leather be that it takes several passes but for my prototyping work that is now a major time saver. Even the little one shown here can be moved around over the top of a whole hide if you wanted to do it in sections or as can be seen later a very large version I am working on can do larger than poster size and all for a few hundred dollars. (So far). Watch it and comment and follow if your interested to see more.

Your welcome. I wish I had thought of it several thousand straps back though My wife agrees on the simple part at least .....as far as I go anyways

@BlakesBlades No, I have not had any slipping problems that have allowed the leather to scratch. A light layer of latex glue on the underside might be a further improvement though.

Recently I came up with an improved method for straightening up leather before being cut into strap lengths. This is a short video that I hope some of you may find useful until something better comes along.

Pictures and notes being taken as I go and still a ways to go ho ho. The Al Paker one is again one of the staffs ideas who is into them. She actually go me to do an AlPaker onto a stubby cooler(drink cosy) with the laser for her son. The wife was lucky to pick up some heavy drill type fabric with that design on it and the rest you can now see. The next one in from the left is for another staffs girlfriend who is a .........vegan so it is vinyl.

Dragonfly, and not my drawing design just cleaned up for the laser work. It is for a bag made up for one of my staff along with a few others for Christmas. She provided the drawing she wanted and was happy with the result.