Laser And Leather

[Capnclive]

While at my son's industrial modeling shop today, I asked if the laser machine would cut or print on leather. The answer was "let's try it". Naturally I didn't have any leather with me so I took off my old belt that I made 20 plus years ago and stuck it in the machine. We didn't have enough time to look up a cool font, out doors-ey or cowboy-ish, and they were just doing me a favor. So without much planning or thought, we just pushed the green button and away it went. It came out upside down on the belt, (oh well) and it is a little too formal looking for my taste, but I can see some possibilities here. It looks like a tiny random camouflage backgrounder was used - kinda pretty, but the lines are far too perfect. Notice a darker area at the top of the belt, and just above the letters. The laser burns the leather, and the suction fan was pulling the flame up toward the top side of the belt scorching it a little.

I was wondering if any of you have used a laser engraving machine to put patterns on the surface of leather or to cut shapes with it?

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Yep, lasers are everywhere now. Do a search of the forums for laser, and see what pops up. I believe there was some Steampunk items that were done with a laser recently.

[bruce johnson]

I've got a few I have had done. I've got friend who has a laser and uses it on all kinds of things. This one I tooled the cover first and then she lasered in the graphics for the logo and lettering. I oiled it and assembled it afterwards. The lasering has held up better than I expected. Used daily and carried on a lot of travel.

I have talked to a few people who have used lasers to transfer tooling pattern outlines onto leather and skip the tracing film/stylus deal.

[RustyMelton]

I've got a few I have had done. I've got friend who has a laser and uses it on all kinds of things. This one I tooled the cover first and then she lasered in the graphics for the logo and lettering. I oiled it and assembled it afterwards. The lasering has held up better than I expected. Used daily and carried on a lot of travel.

I have talked to a few people who have used lasers to transfer tooling pattern outlines onto leather and skip the tracing film/stylus deal.

I think that looks great with the tooling around it. I think John Barton uses one from time to time on some of his cases. I'd love to have one to play around with especially if it could eliminate some of the tracing.

[gtwister09]

In the past when working in a place where we had a couple of lasers we used them in vector and bitmap modes. In the bitmap mode we used a mask and just swept the laser across the wood, leather or whatever material we were shooting at the time. To answer your question you can use it for all sorts of graphics (both vector based and bitmapped based) as well as cutting leather.

Regards,

Ben

[Double U Leather]

I've had some stuff lasered. Just small pocket notebooks for ranchers, but they turned out slick.

[Capnclive]

Neat ideas. Thanks. I am going to try to use it as a clicker and see how bad it burns the edges of the leather. I am also going to use it to cut out (in 1/16th inch plastic) a couple of tracing patterns to use for key chain holders and other small items. I have some made with a scroll saw, but they are not very symmetrical due to my drawing skills. I can do better with cad or illustrator and a laser cutter.....

[roo4u]

there are folks who travel to dog shows that do laser engraving on collars and leashes.

[albane]

These leggings were laser cut

[Chris DeGerolamo]

New here so bear with me..

I got into leather applications on our laser less than 3 months ago. Since then, I have been able to design (in AutoCAD) holsters and cut the materials using our laser. All of the holes for stitching get cut as well, saving a tremendous amount of time (time=$). Using the engraving function, we are able to add text and artwork, of which we have a metric butt-ton. I have attached a few images; sorry for the lack of quality as these were taken with my phone and text messaged to e-mail. Thanks for looking.