Pre-Release | Leather Wallet

Made on a Glowforge
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Supplies: Proofgrade Leather 2-3oz & Random Leather - Op time: Grab bag leather 30mins - Proofgrade Leather 27 mins

I am going start off with- No research was done. Just wanted to do it and learn from it. And that I did.

I wanted to attempt to make a wallet. But I wanted something unique to me on it. The one milestone thing for me last year was designing my building my CNC. It took a couple months and all the features sets I want to achieved were fulfilled.

I opened up F360, Then opened the model and switched over to drawing mode. Change the angle/look I wanted then exported that out as a PDF. Opened another tab in fusion and create the layout for the wallet. Then dump that out as a DXF. Switched over to AI, imported both assets and played around with it till I got the look/layout I liked. Then colored the layers so they appeared as separate ops in the GFUI. Setup the cuts and engraves- then loaded up the leather.

Sidenote- On Amazon there are a couple vendors that sells 1~10lb boxes of scrap leather for a super reasonable price. Ordered a couple boxes (Love Prime) and this is what I used for this attempt.

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It took 33 mins the cut was done in one pass. But man oh man. Dat smell yo. It was brief until exhaust spooled up to max speed then the smell died off. But man- When that smell first hit my mind went the scene in Walking Dead with Negan and the Iron.

Anywho- It came out pretty good. But I failed to account for one thing (which you prolly already figured out by now) the thickness and pliability of the leather. [/insert sad trombone]. Too thick to bend and to even attempt to sew. I tried soaking it to see If could form it into the fold pattern I wanted. No dice. So the first attempt was a failure. No biggie, I’ll try again later.

Fast forward a couple months…

This time I was armed with proofgrade leather. Loaded up the original file and hit print.

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Straight out of the machine.

With the masking (mostly) removed.

Now the next step. Stitching. (Yup. Some masking is still on there)

Soaked it and it’s now sitting in a form with a weight on top. Well that work? No idea.

I prolly missed a bunch of steps or did something wrong. But that’s okay. It was fun to make.

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looks awesome! hoping to play with some leather soon myself.

Ive found that it smells like that smell you smell when the dentist is drilling your teeth. Its almost like burnt hair, but a little more metallic smelling

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It should work ok. For future reference, it’s good to soak the leather in warm water and then let it dry out a bit. You’ll notice that the leather will darken when wet, and once it’s dried to almost its original color/shade, it is ready to be shaped.

But seriously, no big deal … I bet this will work out just fine. Thanks for sharing it!

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Very nice! be sure to share a pic if you get a chance of the finished project after you finish it out.

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I second this. I bought some scraps for my k40 (ventilation meh at best). It is absolutely the most nose crinkling smell that has ever wafted past me.

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Looks great! Thought I was losing my mind, Kept thinking I had seen this befor. Then saw it was attempt 2 :smiley:

Can’t wait to work in leather!

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By the way, what was the weight of the Proofgrade leather, you said the stuff a couple months ago was 2-3oz, which ended up to thick to fold, just curious what size the PG was?

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:raised_hands: yes!

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Happy Cakeday @kids_a_pistol!

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It would seem worth it then to do a sacrificial engrave or cut off the leather (either onto the bed or on a piece of same thickness wood or cardboard) that would let the GF ventilation spool up so by the time it hit the leather engraves/cuts it was running the ventilation already and then you’d not have that smell. Is there a fixed time it takes to spool up to max speed?

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Love that you went for it and were so successful!

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It depends on the ventilation/filter.

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Even better, put in some Cedar and do a full tea-light holder on the side. Then you get a nice smell to waft out while you wait for ventilation to start, and you wait long enough to be sure it does indeed start (plus you get something nice out of your extra time)

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I have a number of fragrances that are designed to react with several types of nasty odor components. If any pre-release, beta, or other laser users are interested in trying free samples of them, please send me a message. One would use about a tablespoon of material in the bottom of the bed. The fragrances are absorbed onto granular corn cob grit and are easy to clean up when spent. All I ask in return is feedback on their effectiveness.

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You are a gem, that sound awesome! Wish I had a unit so I could test it for you

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“Mine’s the one that says ‘BAD MOTHER%&(^*@^@#’ on it”

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Back in the day…(whilst in the Army ) I used alcohol to soften the leather in my boots…worked well.

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Yeah. Kinda like that

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Need to make a couple changes. But overall I am happy with it.

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Beautiful job, I like it. :grinning:

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