What type of leather are you using? What oz is it?
I have tried various types of leather in our glowforge and alot of them don’t cut well or take som many passes to cut it’s not worth it.
It seems like there is a fine line between leather that is too think that it takes too many cuts and leather that is too thin that it puckers up when cutting…
It would be nice to find some that I know cuts well.
Thank you! The leather is a great quality top grain leather that has been split to between 2.5 to 3 oz. I’ve also cut ones between 3 to 4 oz as well on the Glowforge and it really comes down to the power/speed setting and making sure that you cut down your leather to the size you need on the bed and lay it out flat somewhere for about a day. I’ve had one piece pucker up when cutting because I didn’t lay it out flat to relax the fibers. Hope this helps!
Excellent work. I may have missed an earlier post, but can you share what you use for stitching, stitch spacing, etc. I’m making a carrying bag for one of my game boards and want to give this a try. Thoughts?
Great question. The spacing is based on the leather tool called a diamond hole chisel which alternate in spacing from 2mm to 5mm and so on. In lieu of using the diamond shape, I used a round shape. Good luck and feel free to share the bag with me when it’s done!
Dave, I use waxed thread for stitching. This is a standard in the leatherworking industry because it allows you to stitch your products without fraying the thread as you get further through your stitching. You can use leather strips as well. It all depends on your design and the aesthetic. Good luck
how much of the “char” from burning the holes does your thread pick up? did you have a way to clean that out before you started the stitching? i’ve only tried one leather piece so far, but i’m glad i used black thread so you couldn’t see any discoloring from that.
Great question. I tested this using a red waxed thread for a different project that you can see in this post: iPad Pro 9.7 Inch Sleeve Prototype
The thread picks up some of the char and it really depends on the ounce of the leather and your power/speed settings. The thicker the leather, the more time and power it takes to cut (also more passes), which leaves more charring. It also depends on how you’re stitching (i.e. does your thread move around much as it passes through? If so, there may be more char on the thread. This is a minor note that has relatively little impact).
I’ll also be testing another method of making soon to avoid the char getting onto the thread. Hope this helps!
thanks, that does a bit. i was cutting some saddleback full grain leather from a scrap bag, so it was very thick and that probably affected how much char. was hoping there was a magic “do this and it will help clean some of that out first” method out there, so i’m looking forward to hearing about the method you’re testing.