Cutting Leather With Laser Questions

[Kristina]

On 3/13/2016 at 1:33 AM, pillpusher said:

Hey everyone,

I work in a maker-space and have access to laser cutters. I was planning on making acrylic templates for some of my designs, but I am also wondering about using the laser to cut the leather pieces out directly.

I know that the laser chars the edges but are they still able to be finished and burnished? Is the smell really that bad? I mostly use vegetable tanned leather of Horween Chromexcel, horeside, etc.

Thanks

1

Hi Pillpusher,

I cut loads of leather with a laser and have been doing so since 2011. I mainly cut small pieces; I'm a jewelry designer.  At our maker space, we have a 45-watt laser and it can effectively cut up to a 6-7 oz veg tan hide. Before I laser cut the veg tan, I soak it in water which helps it lay flat and also helps with reducing burning and charring. Instead of beveling the edges of my piece with a bevelling tool, I wait until it's dry and use a sanding drum on my flex shaft. Since the edges are a bit "crispy" from the laser, I also sand the entire edge a little bit to rough up the fibers; this makes it so that when I burnish the edges with my burnishing tool, there's a bit more to burnish and I get a nice rounded edge. You can see the edges in the photo I attached. There's definitely a smell when the laser cuts the leather, but I and everyone else at my maker space have gotten used to it since there are loads of others cutting leather too. I've tried all kinds of leather but the ones I've had the most success with are veg tanned, deer, elk, pig, goat, and suede - leather that typically hasn't been treated with any waxes. I will say that when I cut my suede pieces, I have to clean the edges very well since the charring will transfer to garments. I'm assuming you've already learned a ton since your original entry was back in 2016. Cheers!

[Rockoboy]

Hi there Kristina, That's a really good looking piece there. I am guessing it might be a wristband? Do you have anymore pics of your work?

[ArtisanWorks]

I train people to use the laser cutter/engravers at my makerspace. Leather lasers wonderfully. One cautionary note though: Don't cut chrome-tanned leather as this will release toxic chemicals into the atmosphere—hurting you and the machine. If you don't know what it is, don't cut it. It's that serious. (If you want to cut these types of leather, consider getting a drag-knife setup like a Cricut/Silhouette or CNC Router.)

As to the discussion on technology vs. handmade, I see the laser as a simple evolution of the head knife or scissors. It gives me more time to concentrate on the design of the piece, tooling, and finishing. 
 

[Rockoboy]

On ‎11‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 10:29 AM, ArtisanWorks said:

As to the discussion on technology vs. handmade, I see the laser as a simple evolution of the head knife or scissors. It gives me more time to concentrate on the design of the piece, tooling, and finishing. 

I totally agree. I think innovations are a good thing. On the other hand, if you don't like innovations, don't use them.

[Ard Righ Art]

On 9/10/2018 at 10:29 PM, ArtisanWorks said:

As to the discussion on technology vs. handmade, I see the laser as a simple evolution of the head knife or scissors. It gives me more time to concentrate on the design of the piece, tooling, and finishing. 
 

Jumping into an old thread. I met some guys at a makerspace using a CNC machine to rough out a 15th c. violin pattern.  The maker commented that in the old days, the master would have had a shop full of apprentices slaving away bringing the instrument to the point it could be brought to him for finishing. He was merely replacing the shop full apprentices with a machine.

One impetus in this evolution was a discussion with a guy who was selling bracelets by the truckload at a festival. He stated that he used to be a hand-tool only person like myself, but found that limited his time to only so much production per year, capping his income at [a figure that would make me happy]. Now he has a shop full of people who roll them off a belt embossing machine, cut them and snap them, and is able to make [well over 3x said amount].

Wow. I am a businessman, but I just don't want to go that route. 

After a lot of thought and experimentation, I have come to the point where I am content with using the laser to replace my swivel knife, and tooling from there.  I have played with using it to cut out the patterns and add stitching holes, but with the machines available to me it has been faster to make a score and then cut by hand, so far. For instance, using the laser can cut the patterns for 18 bracelets at a time, but a strap cutter set to my index marks is still faster for cutting the bracelets apart from each other.  I also found that casing the leather, at least lightly, cuts down on char and smell, but it does add a variable to the cutting properties.

Other tidbits - I need to see if Corel's centerline trace function would save me a lot of time over using Adobe (expensive) or Inkscape's (free) edge trace functions, which require deleting the double line obtained by the fact that their functions see both sides of a line as separate lines.

I have finally gotten settings that will cut or deeply score the edges, and hit about the right depth for subsequent tooling. Between the savings of time in layout, measurement, placing the pattern just so, tracing, and cutting with a swivel, I estimate I am knocking off about 40% of my time for an end result that is still clearly tooled. 

I can do it either way. My high end pieces are still hand done from start to finish. I have lots of interesting conversations with others when they ask the inevitable, "did you do all this by hand?" question. Very few people have been utterly dismissive, so far. If they are tempted, I grab a piece done both ways, and ask if the difference is worth the extra price. Though to be sure, I am not discounting the laser production as much as they would like, as it is a capital expense that has to be recouped.

Here is a laser then tooled piece from about a year ago. Someone pointed out I had been lazy with the bevel marks and could have gone deeper with it as well.  I need to make some contemporary photos to see if anyone thinks I have gotten better on that.

 

[ScoobyNewbie]

Two of the older guys at Tandy took a class at our Dospace (probably the same as your maker Space), they really seemed to enjoy it, and the journal covers and other stuff were all really cool! 

[robs456]

On 2018-09-11 at 4:29 AM, ArtisanWorks said:

As to the discussion on technology vs. handmade, I see the laser as a simple evolution of the head knife or scissors. It gives me more time to concentrate on the design of the piece, tooling, and finishing. 

Well, I would see the clicker press as the evolution to handheld blades and the laser as some sort of side track as it is in fact burning the leather and comes with the effects of doing that, to both surface and structure.
Lasers are more the evolution of pyrography though, I think. 

On 2018-10-31 at 10:37 PM, Ard Righ Art said:

Now he has a shop full of people who roll them off a belt embossing machine

Good for him, he's got himself a factory.
And people to con sell his stuff to. Most likely they've never seen a handmade leather product and will go 'Oh wow it's like raised up how cool is that OMG!'
First time I saw an embossed product after I learned to just stamp a simple pattern I went like 'WTF did they do to this leather?' 
Not so many know good leather, or even care, but there's a lot of people that want a 'rustic' leather bracelet saying 'Love', or more fittingly 'Atrocity'...