Yeah…that’s more like it!
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My child proof swearing will never be the same
I just heard while attending a leather supplier trade show of a hybrid veg/chrome-tanned leather. The fellow (he’s from a safety testing group) that described the leather, claimed that the veg-tan components added to the chrome-tanned process effectively block/trap the formation of hexavalent chromium during laser cutting - very cool, from a safety perspective.
Alas, he couldn’t identify a supplier of this material, so my question to y’all here is this: has anybody else heard of veg/chrome-tanned leather, and know of any suppliers?
Forgive me for dredging up an old topic, but I could use some help here. I read through this entire thread - as well as just about every other thread on the forum that mentions leather - and I’m still not finding a clear answer on what types of soft temper leather are safe to laser? Am I overlooking something?
For those who are unfamiliar with the different tanning processes and the resulting temper, veg tan or “tooling leather” is generally stiffer leather. It can be carved, tooled, shaped and hardened (which may be why some people refer to it as “hard leather”). Most other tanning processes - such as chrome tan, oil tan and brain tan - yield a softer more supple temper with more of a fabric like drape.
I know that softer leathers can be laser cut, as I’ve seen plenty of examples; but based on the info here, it seems that oil tan is a hot mess when laser cut and chrome tan is unsafe due to chemicals. Brain tan is an unlikely choice, as that’s a very labor intensive and uncommon tanning process; hardly anyone does it this way anymore so true brain tan is extremely rare and very expensive.
Reader’s digest version: can anyone tell me what kinds of soft leather will play nicely with my laser?
*Edited to add: I’m also curious about the potential for laser cutting rawhide. I imagine that it will be super stinky, but safe - amiright?
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Thanks, @rhenley. I’m definitely not an expert on lasering leather–though I look forward to doing the work to become one!
Here’s what I currently understand about @Drea’s specific question about soft temper leathers: there is no good, definitive answer, because there are so many complicating factors (tannage chemicals, leather weight, finish chemicals, colorants). I do know that lasering service providers like LaserBean say that most soft leathers shrivel up to some degree when cut.
I’m planning to take the question one product at a time, one step at a time. For instance, I have one of Tandy Leather’s veg-tan, chrome-free Studio Sides. It’s thin enough–2.5 to 3 oz. (1 to 1.2 mm)–to sew on a heavy duty home sewing machine (mine is a Singer Heavy Duty) and has a softish hand and drape that’s suitable for outerwear, pants, hobo purses, etc. When my GF shipping notice arrives, I plan to call Tandy’s HQ and ask for an MSDS on the leather or any other information I can get about the tannage, colorant, and finish chemicals, and if it seems laser safe, I’ll cut a sample and post the results to the GF community, with photos. I’ll do that with other leathers I have, case by case. My guess is that we’re not going to find a lot of good options for soft tempers, and that for most of them, I’ll mostly use the laser to do a light etch of patterns on the surface that I’ll then hand-cut.
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Also, thinking about this has gotten me to wondering about how we might alter laser-safe leathers to get more laserable options. Would sandblasting a typical veg-tan give us a nubuck-like surface, for example? Should it be dyed before or after? It wouldn’t change the softness, though. How about running a very thin piece of veg tan through a roller system, and then tumbling it in a cool dryer?
THOUGHTS???
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I’d guess that sandblasting would yield a split-like texture … guess being the operative word.
- Edited to add that I’d dye afterward, even if using low voc dyes, just to err on the side of caution.
^That suggestion reminded me of the double milled veg tan that I’ve seen, which does have a softer hand (and a lovely texture, too).
FWIW, I’ve been researching this topic outside of this forum, and seeing posts on leatherworker.net and sawmillcreek.org that suggest that people do laser cut both chrome tan & veg tan … but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good idea 
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Yeah–I’ve seen those posts as well, and I think, “Not around MY lungs, or MY laser.”
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Bingo!
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I think this is going to be the week I should buy a lottery ticket. I emailed my brother and sister-in-law this morning. They are veteran garage sailors and estate sales junkies. “Hey, if you have any leather working stuff, could you bring it when you visit this weekend.” They Facetimed this afternoon with the haul they got at a sale this morning. Something around 25 bucks for all this. I don’t know if he’s going to sell it to me now!
@Drea and @morganstanfield, take note.
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Nice haul! 
Heck YEAH! Great find! I love garage sales, eBay, and occasionally craigslist for leatherwork supplies and tools. People tend to buy into the hobby and then sell things in big, cheap batches when they tire of it. I’ve also gotten great deals on this Facebook group, “Leather swap trade or sell.”
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Hopefully they will part with it.[quote=“marmak3261, post:115, topic:943”]
veteran garage sailors
[/quote]
Sorry, but, that made me laugh!!! 
I guess that would make me more of a garage pirate:
Ar-r-r-r-r-r-r Matey, what will you 'ave for that item thar?
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@marmak3261 I have a huge stash of leather scraps, and I’d be happy to send you some to experiment with. Most of it is veg tan in varying weights, and I also have some garment leather as well (the latter is most likely chrome tan).
They won’t be huge pieces, but they’ll be good for experiments if you’d like to try them. If you’d like them just PM your address.
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A little late to this discussion, but I thought that this might be useful or provide ideas.
While I await my Glowforge, I’m using a 100 watt Full Spectrum Laser.
The pictures below represent a test piece I made this week from 3 oz chrome tanned leather that I laminated to 1/8" plywood, then raster engraved, then laser cut. The piece is just under 2" in diameter.
On a 100w laser (again, not the 45w of a Glowforge), the raster settings used were speed 100, power 40. I wanted to go through the top dyed layer of leather, but not through the full leather into wood.
The vector settings were speed 80, power 60, 2-3 passes. I say 2-3 because I made a couple of these and I was ok with two passes on some, needed a third on one where I was almost but not quite through. The settings need a bit of tweaking so I can be sure it will cut each time.
We’ve got a good ventilation system and the fumes did not significantly smell, although I can’t speak to their actual toxicity. I can say that we’ve cut other items that smelled much worse and items from which the fumes made me cough for days while this had no issue over the 2 hours or so I was doing test cuts.
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Awesome! I’m really happy to see this. I was assuming chrome tanned leather was going to be strictly no-no. For some reason I was thinking it just distintegrates into a gooey puddle, but maybe it’s oil-tanned that I’m thinking of. Regardless, this looks great!
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Nice! This is great. I have some leather bracers Ive made that are a few layers of leather thick that Id really like to do do a new revision of. I want to engrave some cool designs into it. This is good motivation =)
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A few notes on process for the Celtic discs might (or might not) be worth adding, and that may be useful in other situations.
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I was willing to take on the risk of working with Chrome-tanned leather which gives off fumes, in part because I have a good filter and ventilation system for the laser, and in part because I’m totally up for a bit of risk in my life for the pleasure of making. Do your research and be sure you know and accept any risk before lasering Chrome-tanned leather.
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The design came from https://openclipart.org/detail/264441/celtic-knot-5-optimized - openclipart.org has a large number of designs available as .svg files and all are available for use, including commercial, without attribution. I imported the design into Inkscape (also free) to size, to add the perimeter circle cut, and to differentiate what was to be raster engraved from vector cut.
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I used blue painters tape on top of the leather so that the soot did not cover the un-rastered leather (tried without and was not happy with results and difficulty of removing the soot from the un-rastered sections).
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Consider buying the 3" width of painters’ tape rather than the standard 3/4". For small pieces (under 3"), you won’t have to worry about overlap impacting the etching quality and you’ll have a nice clean unlined surface for viewing details in your work. For large pieces, you lessen the time to tape out significantly. And for all pieces, tape removal tends to be easier.
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To remove the painters’ tape from intricate designs (without the tedium of tweezing), try a high-quality duck tape - stick it on securely to the blue painters’ tape after the piece is complete and rip it off quickly to get most of the blue tape off.
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Duck tape also works for removing the extra soot from the perimeter edge - just roll the sticky side along the edge a bit like you were removing lint. I didn’t want the perimeter soot to rub off on people’s hands.
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Duck tape will also work for removing most of the soot from within the design itself. I didn’t do that here, and am still looking for a dependable process for dying only the newly exposed portions black.
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Woodweld works well for laminating chrome-tanned leather to wood.
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To raster lightweight leathers with any intricacy, you’ll need some approach to keeping them flat and smooth. Seems obvious, but it’s a must.
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The full piece took between 2 and 3 minutes to engrave then cut.
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Thanks for the additional info! 