ROFL! Running late this morning…the water softener was recycling out of sequence and I had to wait for my shower. 
Hi @jrwms54, there are some tricks to cutting and engraving leather…give me five minutes and I’ll tell you everything I know about it. 
1. You want to be kind of gentle when you are engraving leather (and this applies to any leather - you want to just tattoo it and change the color of the surface finish, not burn through to the rough part of the leather). The Proofgrade leather comes pre-masked for cutting, but if you are engraving on the leather, the pre-set Proofgrade settings for engraving have to be a little strong to get through the masking. But the adhesive tends to get melted into the engrave, and that makes an uneven, charred looking engrave.
But when the time comes to cut the leather, you do want that masking on there - it keeps the smoke from staining the leather.
So even though it’s a little bit of extra work up front, I like to carefully peel back the masking from anyplace that needs to be engraved, engrave that area first, and then reapply the masking to the leather, while the leather is pinned down on the bed, for the cutting step. (It does save a lot of time overall in cleanup.)
That’s the main tip for working with leather - if you are cutting it, use masking of some kind, front and back. If you are engraving it, remove the top masking, or apply it after the engraving step.
Engraving Settings without Masking: (all leathers)
Power 2%, Speed:1000, LPI: 270-340
One pass for a brown engrave. Two passes for a dark, almost black engrave.
Cutting Settings with Masking:
Power 60-90%, Speed 220-240 (slower speed and higher power for thicker leather)
2. Second thing - you have to pin the leather down absolutely flat for good results. It’s also important to pin it down so that it doesn’t shift while you are messing with the masking during the engraving and cutting steps…so cut yourself a few of these Honeycomb Pins. (They’re the bees knees!)
That’s it on the leather…but there are some really great training materials for general use here if you want to get ahead of the game: