Long time Glowforger, it has been a while since I have posted but I thought I would drop in and share some of my recent makes. It has been a busy December! I have been doing a lot with leather, having started a few years ago, and working to level up my projects for gifts this year. It’s nice finally getting some time off to be able to work on projects.
One of my favorite projects so far this year- a two toned leather wallet.
I made a bunch of these trays- this one with an engraved verse in it. These are super easy and work with just about any leather thickness up to 6-7 oz. (The sweet spot seems to be 4-5 oz).
Leather is my favourite material - SO much easier than cutting patterns by hand!
In case you haven’t run across it - using felt to pattern your pieces matches the thickness of ~2-3oz leather and doesn’t fray like fabric, plus it’s easy to cut in the laser.
Thanks!! Yes, I have found felt to be very easy to work with and use it quite a bit for coasters.
The GF is so helpful for the cutting. I have mixed feelings on using it for stitching holes. I am finding it is a bit easier and cleaner to etch a line and then punch the holes manually for some projects. It gets to be a pain otherwise, especially when gluing and all the glue seeps through the stitch holes.
I no longer have the hand strength to punch a bunch of holes so I do them all by laser, but there’s also the difficulty of extra ash getting into your project from within the cut holes so I can see why some folks still use the punch.
I love the idea of etching where it should be though - saves a lot of measuring time!
I find that GFing tiny angled slits instead of circular holes works best for me. It better replicates what a diamond hand punch does and gives you a little less char.
Good idea! I haven’t tried that yet to see if it makes much of a difference, but I do like the diamond hand punch (as well as round). I have tried some other techniques, like running a drill bit in the holes and that seems to help reduce the char also.
It definitely depends on your thread! I find a hole that is easy to put one thread through, but tight with two is about perfect. If you use the same thread style for every project you’ll only need to figure it out once
would a small slit be more optimal or a really tiny circular hole?
this has been such a struggle. with the bday party for the wifey completed, and now that the wedding of daughter Prime is completed. I built the cross for the ceremony. 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide. i am getting back on the leather projects.
i promised the wifey a cosmetics “bag” LAST year. so now i need to nail down the stitching situation. and just get the project done.
I have found that .8 is a good size ‘general’ thread, and .6mm is good when you need smaller stitching. I really like the ritza 25 thread, and you can buy the .6 or .8 in a lot of different colors. When I do my own designs, I use 1.3mm round holes, which leaves plenty of room for saddle stitching and doubling up when needed. Many of the design patterns that I have purchased are usually 1mm hole sizes, and I often find I need to use an awl punch to open them up a bit more, otherwise I end up nicking the thread which is quite annoying.
When I do my own punching, I am using a diamond punch from Tandy (“Tandy Leather Diamond Hole Chisel Set 3009-00”. I have a set that has 3 different spacing sizes, the close holes are 2.1mm apart, 3.1mm for the middle size, and 3.9mm for the widest. I use the middle size most of the time, and that’s what you see in the field notes holder image (with the black sleeves).
Best of luck, I remember it took me a while to figure out the stitching and get to a point where I like it. A lot of the stuff on Amazon is larger thread, which is fine for some projects, but I find .6 or .8mm to be the sweet spot for most of what I do.
