Laser cut spur strap 'craftaid'

[Studio-N]

Now that I've got my laser engraver working again, I'm having some fun.

Here is a homemade craftaid for a set of spur straps. I laser engraved it on delrin and you can see the results on a piece I pressed it on to.

I have made a left and right plate. It is ready to start carving and I've marked all the shape cut lines and holes. Now all I have to now is make a few of these.

[leatherman1457]

very interesting. I love that you use technology on one of the oldest industries around. I wish Ihad one now. What type of laser is this ?where can I get one?and how much do they cost.?

[Studio-N]

very interesting. I love that you use technology on one of the oldest industries around. I wish Ihad one now. What type of laser is this ?where can I get one?and how much do they cost.?

Hello. Mine is a Universal Laser Systems M-300 model with 45 watts of power. ULS is a great outfit out of Scottsdale, AZ. This particular model is an industrial model which will run 24/7.

ULS has renamed all of their models to VersaLaser but the M300 is on par with all of their 'Professional' series. 45 watts is a lot of power and not that much is needed for basic leather work.

Most of the 25 watt models will work. Prices run the range from $4k in table top models to high 20's in the pro series with all the bells and whistles. This particular unit was $16k back in 1999.

There is a very friendly rivalry between ULS and the Epilog laser engravers. Both are excellent companies and both provide great machines and excellent support. There are now a lot of pacific rim machines around that may be cheaper. Good luck with those. 'nuf said.

I probably didn't need to go to the extreme of making a plate. I could just engrave the lines directly on the leather and then go from there. This was just fun doing as were the stamps I uploaded in another post. I still like tooling, this just helps eliminate the pattern transfer phase. Cheers!

[LINDSAY]

WOW I sure could have used this when I was making my numerous christmas presents. What a great idea! Are you selling these? I have so many spur strap patterns that I ould love to have this done to. Kuddos to you , this is such a great time saver especially for someone who is not very good at drawing out there own patterns(ME:))

[JohnBarton]

I can't recommend Universal highly enough for anyone considering a laser engraver. We bought ours more than three years ago and it's been worked hard and is still going strong. I put in about 200 hours on it when we got it. The customer service has been perfect.

As for making craftaids, tapoffs, embossing plates, jigs, cutting custom parts, rapid prototyping, cutting patterns, making stamps, oh and also laser engraving...... the laser is the most versatile tool in our shop. We make so many things using the laser that it's just about indispensable at this point.

In our USA shop we run the Universal and in the Chinese shop we run a generic Chinese laser.

For those of you considering using a laser try this - look around and see if there is a machine shop co-op near you. I have found out recently that a lot of these have laser engravers that anyone can use.

[Studio-N]

WOW I sure could have used this when I was making my numerous christmas presents. What a great idea! Are you selling these? I have so many spur strap patterns that I ould love to have this done to. Kuddos to you , this is such a great time saver especially for someone who is not very good at drawing out there own patterns(ME:))

Hi Lindsay,

Thanks for the kind words. I'm not selling these. The pattern is one of the free patterns from TLF but it is still their copyright. I thought I might use it in a class to eliminate the tracing phase.

The front office did talk about maybe doing those spur patterns as a real craftaid in 2010, so keep your fingers crossed.

My engraver is just my hobby toy that I originally got for my woodworking (see attachment). It has just found its way into leatherwork same as me. Cheers!