Leather Day

Very cool, thanks!

so you’re dying them after engraving…How are you handling the engraved bits? Are you masking it, or painting around it, or creating some sort of dye stamp-pad and just magically not getting dye in the engraved area? I tried painting a keepsake box by running a sponge brush over the whole bit with some acrylics, and I realized it wasn’t my best plan. Had to rinse out the brush and try dabbing out the fill.

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I’m not using dye; that would be more “floody” and hard to keep out of the engraved portions, I think. I mostly use a light coat of thinned paint, or shoe polish, or a combination of both. Either way I go lightly and just add a little at a time, so it’s pretty easy to keep out of the engraved areas. For the grays and blacks I do use the vinegar/steel wool dye, but that can go in the engraving too, so it’s not an issue.

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Got it. So my initial approach of just sponging a thick layer of acrylic paint across the surface, while time-efficient, is perhaps sub-optimal… :smiley: I need to be a little less engineer and a little more artist.

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Or paint first, engrave later. :slight_smile:

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I thought about that, but I was worried about the moisture from the paint causing uneven lasering. Again something that could probably be rectified through patience.

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I’ve done one that way, using acrylic paint, when I wanted an even color rather than my usual distressed leather look. I did let the paint dry before engraving, though. :slight_smile:

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Oh wow! Love these. So glad you posted! I am going to dig out my alcohol inks (hopefully they are still good) and try out one of those hair barrette (with the stick in it) to wear and use the alcohol inks (wow long run on sentence…I must be more tired than I thought)…anyway thank you!

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Most of these were 0.65" wide, lengths varied from 6-8" long.

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So we went to Tandy yesterday…holy cow that can overwhelm someone who was only around her young boys when they bought a single leather kit 20 years ago for a Cub Scout project. We resisted lots of temptation and just bought a grab bag of scraps. I figured that was good to experiment with (besides wanting to use tiny scraps with earring hoops. Which type of shoe polish did you use?

Did you use any conditioner on it? Got rid of the Cub Scout leather tools (like the alphabet dies and such) about 9 years ago as I thought "when would I ever use leather tools? Figured I would use the grab bag before I used my 4 pieces of PG leather pieces. Also, does anyone know where you can buy the “sticks” that go in the leather barrettes for your hair? I’d really like to make some of these. Thanks!

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Mine looked like the $7.45 version. :wink: I didn’t have any conditioner when I was making these, but I did experiment with rubbing in coconut oil to soften them before waxing. It worked okay, but they soften up with wear, too.

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For the leather barrettes, you’ve got a Glowforge – why not cut out your own “sticks?” :slight_smile:

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Cut down chopsticks!

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I was thinking of the pointed edge because it eases it through the hair. Wait … do you mean like cut it angled toward the end on two sides and rotate and repeat? hmmm HEY! I have a Dremel (used maybe twice); I wonder if I can add a sanding disk and round those cut edges out some??

I did wear chopsticks in my high school years when my hair was long last time…my hair must have been a lot thicker then though I think it grows much faster now. Because chopsticks seem a lot longer now than I would have worn back then…I’ll go dig those out…maybe add a jewel to the end so you don’t notice it is a cut end? About 3 years ago when it was long I mentioned this to my then boyfriend (since promoted), and he bought me some really pretty ones. Hopefully he won’t mind me cutting them down…I’ll cut a pair down first as a trial then look at them. (Never got the hang of chopsticks—we never ate Chinese food growing up. But they have some beautiful artwork and engravings on some that I have seen.) That would give me the smooth pointed edge. Thanks!

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I’ve thought I’d just use a thin dowel, cut it to length, and put one end in a pencil sharpener. I’ve made a couple barrettes but still haven’t cut the dowel yet. Been busy on other projects, but I really should get around to making my sticks too!

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Cut it along the grain on hardwood, and sand the edges. The hardwoods sand beautifully. :slight_smile:

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I’ll see if we have any pencil sharpeners any more. I know we have the flat pencil style you get from the lumberyard. Good idea I hadn’t thought about that.

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Have you tried coloring them before engraving? If so, was there a difference?

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Yes, and it worked fine for a one-off I tried it on. Usually, though, I was making a bunch all at once, and this was before the camera placement was as precise as it is now, so I had to color an area larger than the bracelet I was planning to engrave/cut out in order to make sure it all had color on it. Since I wanted them all different colors, it was more trouble than it was worth!

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