Sure if it works out well. Obviously will be a while before I have access to a GF. The only other laser I can get to belongs to the Department of Defense. They tend to frown on personal projects.
Dan has posted several times that chrome tanned leather just doesn’t cut with the glowforge so the smell would seem to be irrelevant. From other forums it seems to be an art to laser-cut chrome tanned leather and may also require a more powerful laser or one that pulses (I don’t think the glowforge pulses). That said, I haven’t see a staff member list weights of chrome tanned leather tested or tanneries. For example did they try a 1.5 oz lambskin chrome tan or a 5oz one? Unless someone else posts a disaster story of trying 1-2oz chrome tan I may give it a shot; I have enough sample laying about. Even with veg tanned there are so many treatments I suspect I’ll run into various issues.
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I believe my wallet is 2 oz chrome-tanned but I made it early on with a distant ancestor of today’s GF. You can get through lightweight stuff OK.
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I’m feeling like a doofus here, @caribis2. I’ve searched the forum for “chrome” and “tanned” and seen Dan talk about oil tanned leather (and veg-tan of course), but nothing before now about chrome tanned. Would you provide a link or links to the comment/s you’re referring to?
Cool! I have a ton to work with.
Dan’s answer probably did it for you, but here is a link: Oil Leather Quote
You have to search oil and dan
I would be cautious about burning chrome tanned leather.
It seems that one of the by-products of burning it is hexavalent chrome Cr(VI) which is a fairly potent carcinogen.
I was doing a little research since I have absolutely no leather working experience, and I came across this very complete text on google books.
Tanning Chemistry: The Science of Leather
The passage that caught my eye was:
While I would not take this to mean “never put chrome tanned leather in your Glowforge”, it does indicate that you should be cautious about the quantities used, and to make sure your exhaust or filter setup is well thought out and working properly.
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The folks from www.brettunsvillage.com leather supply recommended that I stick to vegetable tanned leather and avoid chrome tanned, mainly from the volatiles emitted.
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Here is a good how to for making a leather handle covering without sewing. Very laser friendly in design. It uses holes and slits. kind of like a zipper.
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omg i so want to make handles now! I can see some awesome drawer pulls
As a crafter who has worked with a LOT of leather, Use a piece of scrap and do a series of test lines and circles. Do each line / circle in increasing power levels; that way you have a reference piece at the end.
I am looking forward to engraving some designs into base leathers, then aging them with different dies and pigments to give it the finish I am looking for.
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You might want to look into cutting tooling out of acrylic or delrin to make pressed patterns.
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There is a guy on leatherworker.net who’ll make you an acrylic stamp pretty cheap (or at least he did) and reported decent durability. But embossing and engraving/tooling provide different looks so both will need to be explored.
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This was my exact plan. I haven’t done leather working before, but I am really excited to make stamps like this guy has and he is making transfer sheets as well, which I hadn’t seen before. http://www.greyghostgraphics.com/transfer.html
I’ve done leather stamping in both acrylic and acetal/Delrin. Works great!
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I love that this topic brings so many people intrested in working with leather together to share ideas.
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We tried a few tricks to emboss leather. As mentioned, a deep-etched piece of acrylic can be used to emboss the leather (get it wet, press the stamp on with wood and a few c-clamps). That seemed to work well. Remember to inverse your pattern.
But you can also just dig into it with the laser, too. It tends to blacken it a bit (after all, your burning way the leather) but it’s probably possible to clean that up. I think the big problem is that cuts through the smooth surface so it doesn’t look tooled, it looks cut.
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I just came across his article and thought others might find it usefull as well. I’m going leather shopping tomorrow and will at least have some basic knowledge when I enter the store.
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I ran about 30 different types leather through the 40 watt laser on every power/speed setting when we first got it a couple years ago.
A couple chrome tanned leathers cut great, others shriveled like bacon, some completely ignored the laser and others just scorched. As @dan mentions, oil tanned is a disaster. And as several others mention, the volatiles are quite nasty for your health.
It’s such a crap shoot that I only cut plain veg tan now. Even then, there’s lots of a variation in thickness and density within a single hide and things go awry.
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I just wanted to alert y’all to a type of veg-tanned leather that might not be on your radar yet: kangaroo leather.
It’s incredible stuff–about the thinness of watercolor paper but essentially non-stretching and really tough, so it makes incredible book covers and other very fine craft items. It’s typically used in expensive soccer shoes, car seats, gloves, and other applications that need thinness but extreme toughness.
I don’t know about the current legality of shipping it to California (it’s gone back and forth in the past ten years), but I’ve had it shipped to Colorado with no problem.
The company I buy from, Packer Leather, gets theirs from government-mandated herd culling and the meat industry (at least they did last time I bought). I’ve purchased their K-Craft and K-Bookbinding leathers in the past. Both had a very, very smooth finish, and I’ve used both to make book covers that I then wrote on with calligraphy pens. It holds a really beautiful line with no bleeding at all. It also accepts watercolor paint really well.
I’ve never cut it on a laser (@ekla, have you?), but I imagine it would cut like a dream.
Here it is: http://www.packerleather.com/craft-leather.html
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