Cutting extra thick harness

[speedybri]

Hello. 

I've been doing leather for almost 30 years now.  Recently I've started making reproduction harness for civil war artillery reenactors. 

The traces are 3 layers of 12/13oz and what I'd like to do is glue the sides together and then cut them into 1.75" straps. I've been cutting the straps individually and then gluing each layer together and I'd like to streamline the process a bit by just gluing the entire sides together and then cutting. 

Any suggestions on how to cut the straps out of that thickness besides a straight edge and utillity knife?...lol.  Once all three sides are glued together, it's about 5/8" thick. Plough gauge? Draw gauge?  Chainsaw??..lol. 

Thank you everyone in advance for any and all help with this.  It's much appreciated. 

Brian Merrick.                                            Merricks Custom Leather 

[speedybri]

Forgot to mention, sorry.. I did try to make 2 strap cutters that had 3/4" clearance, 1.75 width and used a utillity knife blade.  One you manually pulled like a standard strap cutter.  The other you clamped to the table and pulled the side through.  

Both failed. Miserably.. 🤪

The worked great with 2 layers. Just not with thre three layers of 12/13 unfortunately. 

[kgg]

28 minutes ago, speedybri said:

The traces are 3 layers of 12/13oz

I would suggest:

i) use a motorized leather strap cutter

ii) contacting the suppliers of motorized leather strap cutters like Campbell Randall ( https://campbell-randall.com/shop/strap-cutting )

iii) once you have the straps cut to the width you need it would be a matter of gluing and sewing them together.

28 minutes ago, speedybri said:

The traces are 3 layers of 12/13oz

Could you possibly cut back the thickness to 9 / 10 oz as you have an easier job finding a manual leather strap cutter like Tandy ( tandyleather.ca ) ???

kgg

[Mulesaw]

@speedybri Sounds like a great idea, I'd try to get a small bandsaw, and use a meat cutting blade for it. If you haven't got a band saw yourself, perhaps a friend has got one? Changing a blade on one is really easy, so you could eventually just buy a blade that fit his/her saw and then use it whenever you need to cut the straps.
 https://kasco.com/collections/boneless-poultry-processed-meat-band-saw-blades 

A blade like this is what I had in mind. 

You'd have to draw a line to cut along, but a regular straightedge or a long ruler would do the trick.

I'd love to see a post with artillery harness 🙂

Brgds Jonas

 

[chuck123wapati]

Interesting project

How do you plan on gluing up that big of a piece without getting air pockets?

I've cut a bit of small leather pieces with a band saw it works well.

But i think a guy could cut all the hides together like MuleSaw says with or without glueing them together. Maybe stack them flat on a piece of 3/4 ply, clamp em down, and use a circular saw with a fine blade and an edge guide. Maybe even a piece of sacrificial 1/4 inch ply on the top to help hold the layers tight

 

[speedybri]

Thanks for all the replies and ideas!!  I appreciate the help. 

I tried a table saw and a skillsaw with some plywood.  Weirdly the fine tooth blade burned the leather really badly.  A more aggressive tooth blade did better but still was pretty rough. It goes fine for a bit and then it just wants to tear everything up.  

Bandsaw is a good idea. I'm not sure how I'm gonna hold that large of a piece up while feeding it though the saw.   I'd have to build a table around the bandsaw to lay the three sides on to they would stay together.  

Brian.  

 

[fredk]

You can get knife blades for larger bandsaws

Build a support table to hold the work. I made extensions to my 10" sq table, front and back, so I could cut long lengths of beech wood. The extensions were about 18" front & back, afair

[bruce johnson]

That kind of thickness stacked - a plough gauge slight maybe but eat a good breakfast, a draw gauge - better have a grip on the strap and the gauge and a sharp a*s blade. I'm not sure how far you are from any draft or pulling harness makers because I don't think we have any on the forum. I would get with one of those guys and ask how they do it. I'm betting one piece at a time and then stack them though. 

[TomE]

Regarding the glueing of hides.  Don Gonzales published an interesting-to-me video on glue strengths.  The Aquilim 315 water-based contact cement produced a strong bond when applied to one surface and immediately assembled without drying. I use Barge but think I'll give this a try.  I like cutting straps one at a time so I can check the quality and decide how to use each strap.

 

[kgg]

4 hours ago, TomE said:

Don Gonzales published an interesting-to-me video on glue strengths. 

The water based with one coat is Very interesting. The problem with the Aquilim 315 is the cost. It is about 1.6 times the cost of a heavy duty clear contact cement from your local hardware store. 

kgg  

 

Edited August 28 by kgg