Alternative/traditional cutting and punching mats?

[Aventurine]

I seem to be allergic to the plasticky stuff of the cutting mat I handled today.  Does anyone use something else?  What did people use before the synthetic cutting and punching mats anyhow?  Rawhide?  Felt?  Soft wood board? Damp clay slab?  Wax tray?

[Mablung]

I use a HDPE cutting board. Punching is on a rubber poundo board. @fredk made himself an end grain punching board. Lot of ways to skin that cat. 

[bruce johnson]

I cut on HDPE and punch on LDPE. HDPE allows your knife to glide more without digging in and twisting off points. LDPE allows punch edges to lightly punch into the board for cleaner punches on the leather and less damage on punch edges than harder synthetics.  Other materials are soft wood, or masonite for cutting. Punching - some old guys used lead slabs and when they got chewed up - melted the surface with a torch to smooth them up - health issues with that material. I throw them away in shop buy-outs so I'm not tempted. End grain wood works well, the rubber poundo boards, neolite sole material ia another of my favorites, rubber conveyor belting, mud flap material, etc. 

only time for cutting mats is Olfa roller blade knives around here. 

[fredk]

I mainly use a wood block. Made of short pieces end grain up. The black lines are just alignment marks so the end grain is in a different direction on each block

Sometimes, on small projects I use a wax block slab

[SUP]

I use thick leather splits for punching. I cut them into the required size and when they get out of shape, replace. For punching thicker leather, I use a wax slab too. It waxes the chisel tips each time the chisels go through and make the punching smoother.

[JDFred]

There is a company called Rumber they recycle tires into trailer flooring.  We redecked a couple trailer at work and I brought home a couple of the drop-offs that is what I use for punching.  Maybe you’ve goat a place that works on trailers close to you that may use the stuff and have some scraps.  As far as cutting I use a self healing cutting board.

[zuludog]

I, and I think most people, use the usual self healing cutting mat. However, I notice that in her earlier videos JH Leather worked on a plain (and marked) wooden surface until she changed it for a cutting mat, presumably because she wanted to smarten up the videos

For use under stitching chisels I used a plastic kitchen chopping board, then just an old magazine, and change it when it becomes worn, it works well enough

[MarshalWill]

In the saddle shop we just cut on plywood screwed to the workbench. For punching holes, end grain blocks much like @fredk showed in his post

[Aventurine]

Thank you.