Leather cutting table

[bladegrinder]

Back when I first started doing leatherwork I used the tailgate of my truck and a piece of plywood for cutting leather because my 2/3 of a one car garage knifemaking shop was too small, and my back always killed me afterwards.

fast forward many years and now my knife shop is 30' x 50'. I have another air conditioned place I keep my sewing machine and all my leather stuff but it's small and not really a place to unroll a side of leather.

that's where I came up with this cutting table. at first I just had the one but recently got another to make it wider. it's just two tables with pvc pipes slid over the legs to elevate it to a nice comfortable, no bending over place to cut leather. the light's I made up too using a couple plastic buckets and some pvc pipe. these are nice, I use these light all over my shop where I think I need extra light at the time, I have outlets everywhere and also have two four outlet gang boxes hanging from the ceiling for some of my machines so it's plug and play everywhere.

I figured I'd post a pic of these tables because there's got to be at least one other person that might use this idea. I'm 6'-1" and these tables are at 44", I love them!

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by Northmount
Replaced 3rd party host link with photo

[stelhrse]

Great idea bladegrinder. Thanks for sharing. A question. What diameter and length of pvc pipe did you use for the leg extensions? I have the same issues and this may solve it for me. Thanks.

Edited June 13, 2023 by stelhrse

[fredk]

Good idea

But are they steady enough? I would use pipe  joints to put lengths of pipes running between all the legs, to make them all dependent on each other to stay steady

[Klara]

I solved the same problem by repurposing some telescopic trestles which I had bought when they were available at Lidl (at a much lower price) and putting wide boards over them. 

[Handstitched]

What a great idea. Is that an anvil on wheels I see in the background ? ...and you play a trumpet? 

HS

[chuck123wapati]

very cool !! i like the light stands too!! 

[bladegrinder]

20 hours ago, stelhrse said:

Great idea bladegrinder. Thanks for sharing. A question. What diameter and length of pvc pipe did you use for the leg extensions? I have the same issues and this may solve it for me. Thanks.

It's 1 1/4" stelhrse.

[bladegrinder]

17 hours ago, fredk said:

Good idea

But are they steady enough? I would use pipe  joints to put lengths of pipes running between all the legs, to make them all dependent on each other to stay steady

These tables are rock solid fredk, I liked the single one so much I made another being careful to make them exactly the same height. their like one solid table, there's zero rocking or movement.

[bladegrinder]

12 hours ago, Handstitched said:

What a great idea. Is that an anvil on wheels I see in the background ? ...and you play a trumpet? 

HS

Thanks Handstitched, yep that's an anvil, #220 sitting in a trash can filled with sand. I wish I played the trumpet or any musical instrument. I snore pretty loudly at night but the wife say's it's not music to her ears,

I found that trumpet at a house about to be demolished. part of the job I had before I retired was to go to any property about to be demoed to check for and disconnect any natural gas lines. there were two demo company's in my area and I knew both of them, they let me take pretty much anything that wasn't any value to them, the trumpet looked cool so I threw it in the truck. got a lot of cool stuff over the years!

[Northmount]

On 6/12/2023 at 7:04 PM, bladegrinder said:

I figured I'd post a pic of these tables

Please post photos on this site.  3rd party hosted photos often go missing because user deletes, moves files, closes account, or host changes policies or goes out of business.  Then the post is useless for any future views or research.  There are lots of methods you can use to reduce file sizes to fit restrictions here.  Pics over 800 to 1024 pixels wide aren't displayed in full resolution on many device so you don't need 5MB files.  Also it takes people on the fringes of the internet sometimes hours to be able to view photos.  Be kind to them too!

[Burkhardt]

2 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

Thanks Handstitched, yep that's an anvil, #220 sitting in a trash can filled with sand

With the anvil sitting in sand won't that rust especially in Florida's humidity?

[bladegrinder]

53 minutes ago, Northmount said:

Please post photos on this site.  3rd party hosted photos often go missing because user deletes, moves files, closes account, or host changes policies or goes out of business.  Then the post is useless for any future views or research.  There are lots of methods you can use to reduce file sizes to fit restrictions here.  Pics over 800 to 1024 pixels wide aren't displayed in full resolution on many device so you don't need 5MB files.  Also it takes people on the fringes of the internet sometimes hours to be able to view photos.  Be kind to them too!

OK, I've always posted pics using Imgur but I understand what your saying, I've looked at old threads on forums and found that the pics were missing. I'll try and figure out how to post straight from my computer on any future pics.

[Northmount]

1 minute ago, bladegrinder said:

I'll try and figure out how to post straight from my computer on any future pics.

Thank you, much appreciated.  Some helps here besides on the web. 

[bladegrinder]

32 minutes ago, Burkhardt said:

With the anvil sitting in sand won't that rust especially in Florida's humidity?

I haven't had too many problems, certain times of year I do get sitting moisture, but I keep all my machines well oiled or greased and have covers over the beds-tables so it's not too bad.

the anvil gets wiped pretty often.

Now if there was no one ever in that shop for a year or so there would definitely be problems with rust. my biggest problem is with critters. I have four 10 x 12 roll up doors open all day every day and I'm out in the boonies in the woods, I have a lot of mud daubers and wasps cruising thru, along with spiders, lizards and the occasional but rare snake. as soon as I got my Cowboy 4500 I decided it wasn't staying in there and getting buggered up with insects. the mud daubers are actually the worst, trying to build nest in every little crevice they can find. but in the end....there's no where else I'd rather be.

[bladegrinder]

test photo straight from my computer...

 

 

It worked !!!

[Burkhardt]

Looks great and I finally get a real pic of the wicker basket stamp. Was always curious to see how it looked.

[bladegrinder]

That was a phone pic, now I need to figure out how to resize my real camera photos.

 

Yea, that's one of sergies, I just got it last week. that was a practice piece.

[Handstitched]

7 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

test photo straight from my computer...

I so love that weave . I googled that, not much luck here in Oz . 

Thats one stamp you don't want to mess up 

HS

[Handstitched]

11 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

I found that trumpet at a house about to be demolished.

Off topic : have you ever been tempted to  try and play it ?   I have an English ' hunting horn' in my collection of ' stuff' . My lungs aren't up to the task of blowing it ..yet. 

HS

[YinTx]

12 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

That was a phone pic, now I need to figure out how to resize my real camera photos.

 

Yea, that's one of sergies, I just got it last week. that was a practice piece.

I have that stamp.  I have a real hard time running it straight.  Yours looks like it came out better than any I have done with it!

[327fed]

Wal Mart has 2 sizes of these table/bed lift kits. Really solid for hand work but I have seen them broken with beds, etc. Handy to put away and fold the table. 

[Gezzer]

On 6/12/2023 at 8:04 PM, bladegrinder said:

Back when I first started doing leatherwork I used the tailgate of my truck and a piece of plywood for cutting leather because my 2/3 of a one car garage knifemaking shop was too small, and my back always killed me afterwards.

fast forward many years and now my knife shop is 30' x 50'. I have another air conditioned place I keep my sewing machine and all my leather stuff but it's small and not really a place to unroll a side of leather.

that's where I came up with this cutting table. at first I just had the one but recently got another to make it wider. it's just two tables with pvc pipes slid over the legs to elevate it to a nice comfortable, no bending over place to cut leather. the light's I made up too using a couple plastic buckets and some pvc pipe. these are nice, I use these light all over my shop where I think I need extra light at the time, I have outlets everywhere and also have two four outlet gang boxes hanging from the ceiling for some of my machines so it's plug and play everywhere.

I figured I'd post a pic of these tables because there's got to be at least one other person that might use this idea. I'm 6'-1" and these tables are at 44", I love them!

 

NICE !  Outside the box 

[bladegrinder]

13 hours ago, Handstitched said:

Off topic : have you ever been tempted to  try and play it ?   I have an English ' hunting horn' in my collection of ' stuff' . My lungs aren't up to the task of blowing it ..yet. 

HS

Yea, I blew thru it a few times out here in the woods. I think I heard sasquatch yelling back to me.

[bladegrinder]

8 hours ago, YinTx said:

I have that stamp.  I have a real hard time running it straight.  Yours looks like it came out better than any I have done with it!

That was a picture of my "good" practice piece, yea this one takes some concentration and patience.

[Burkhardt]

23 hours ago, bladegrinder said:

That was a phone pic, now I need to figure out how to resize my real camera photos.

 

Yea, that's one of sergies, I just got it last week. that was a practice piece.

I'm not good with computers or a expert but if you're using like Windows 10, I'll upload the pictures, then open them in paint. Then there's a selection of resize and I change just the first number to 660, why that number, I entered it and it worked right so that's my go to number. And if you change the first part of the pixel/size the second number automatically adjusts, then hit save and use that to upload,