Which leather burnishing machine to buy?

[rivetandchain]

I've been making a whole load of belts recently, and I'm slowly realising I need to invest in a leather burnihsing machine, to speed up each project and improve the quality of my work. I have seen a new craftool pro burnishing machine that Tandy sells for $350 CAD with their elite discount. Just wondering if anyone has any other recommendations before I pull the plug and get one.

[Northmount]

Lots of threads here about burnishers and making your own.  Try a search for burnisher.

Tom

[howlback]

52 minutes ago, rivetandchain said:

I've been making a whole load of belts recently, and I'm slowly realising I need to invest in a leather burnihsing machine, to speed up each project and improve the quality of my work. I have seen a new craftool pro burnishing machine that Tandy sells for $350 CAD with their elite discount. Just wondering if anyone has any other recommendations before I pull the plug and get one.

I "made my own" by utilizing a Habor Freight 5-speed bench drill press and a drill burnisher from Pro Edge burnishers. The entire thing set me back about $120USD. Does it work? Yes. Is it ideal? No.

If I'm burnishing a larger piece in one sitting, the motor gets extremely hot. I'm sure there are other drill presses that may not encounter this problem but in the end it's a drill press and I'm betting it wasn't designed to run non-stop for that long of time (not from Harbor Freight anyway).

I will say I just took a class on finishing edges from a well respected member of the leather community. He brought pretty much every type of burnisher there is for demonstration. The Leather Machine Company Cobra Burnisher definitely stood out. It's quiet, it sands (two different grits if you mod it like his) and it runs in reserve. IMO, Leather Machine Co. designed products seem to have "all the kinks worked out" and deliver that extra convenience for leatherwork that some of the cheaper alternatives lack.

You never really know what works for you until you try it! I will say that my drill press set up works great for small stuff but I'm counting down the days until I purchase something a little more heavy duty.

I just looked at Tandy's website...

8,000 rpms! Good Lort! 

Edited March 28, 2018 by howlback

[KittenThrasher]

I just bought one of Nigel Armitage's burnishers from justwood.com, it's a good quality burnishing drum made of Ash with a sanding drum on the other end like the Tandy one, however this one is a LOT cheaper and rather better quality.

Your can also buy the burnisher and/or the sanding drum separately if you have an old bench grinder laying around (which is what I did) that way I got a really nice burnisher for about £100 I visited the people at Just Wood and they were great, very helpful and friendly. A basic 150W cheap bench grinder set up with the burnishing drum is plenty powerful enough for most uses. Mine started to get a bit warm after an hour or so but wasn't that bad.

I've seen one of the Tandy ones and TBH it really isn't as good. even with variable speed.

[KittenThrasher]

PS The drum sander quickly turned out to be great for thinning down the end of straps instead of getting the skiving knife out. 

[Sheilajeanne]

I can get a 2 amp bench grinder from Home Depot or Home Hardware for as little as $70. Would have to check and see how hard it is to change the grinding wheels to a burnisher or sander, though!  https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.21-amp-6-in-grinder-with-led-lights.1000788068.html

What size motor would you recommend? I am currently using my electric drill.

Edited March 28, 2018 by Sheilajeanne

[bikermutt07]

I have finally decided that what people were telling was right. I was wrong. I have a pro burnisher set up on an electric motor running at 3450 rpm. It is too fast. 

I have a smaller 3 speed motor but haven't looked into how to get it set up.

[JLSleather]

Drill press.  Running at maybe 100 rpm with a 1" diameter burnisher.  Nothing pretty about it.  But the edges are pretty nice.  Particularly handy for belts and straps.

[KittenThrasher]

11 hours ago, Sheilajeanne said:

I can get a 2 amp bench grinder from Home Depot or Home Hardware for as little as $70. Would have to check and see how hard it is to change the grinding wheels to a burnisher or sander, though!  https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.21-amp-6-in-grinder-with-led-lights.1000788068.html

What size motor would you recommend? I am currently using my electric drill.

It's not hard to take off the grinding wheels, normally just a 19mm 3/4 spanner. one end is likely to be a reverse threaded nut though, so just look for that.

The only difficulty I found was that the spindle needs to be a very good fit in the burnisher drum and/ or sander. otherwise it won't run true. I had to do a little bit of sanding to get the spindle to a perfect fit.  

There are also a few different size spindles on bench grinders, I have one with a 16mm spindle, one with a 14mm spindle and one with a 12 (which is a bit smaller than 1/2 inch) so check first.

My motor is 200 watts running at  2800 rpm which is more than enough for my needs which aren't very demanding.

I was also interested in Bikermutt's comment above that 3450 rpm is too fast, my machine runs at 2800 rpm and seems pretty ok, maybe it depends on what you doing with it or just the way you use it, I'm going to try a slower speed out of curiosity though.

been playing with a 150 watt speed controlled motor this morning and the main thing I found was that it is massively short of torque at high speed settings, putting a 4mm piece of VT on it with moderate pressure just stopped it dead! not much use really.

good luck. :-)

 

 

[howlback]

Side note: I'm fairly certain the cobra burnishing motor is a modified motor from Porter Cable. However after buying/modifying a few things, IMO in the long run it's cheaper and a hell of a lot less headache to just buy the real deal. Buy once, cry once.

Edited March 29, 2018 by howlback