Where buy leather

Hi, good morning I have big orden with leather someone know where I can buy leather the same that sell profgrade? Thank for Help me I am new only have one week ago.

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Welcome. I order my Veg tanned leather from Tandyleather.com. It is not exactly the same as the PG leather, but it has cut well on my GF.

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Try searching the forum for “leather source”.

https://community.glowforge.com/search?q=Leather%20source

@randavian is right though, Tandy is a good source and has low prices.

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Since I knew nothing at all about leather, I took a small sample of the leather with me to Tandy. That plus not wanting any chrome based will give them enough information to steer you.

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I have sometimes found good leather on eBay, be sure that what you get is vegetable tanned (veg tanned), as other tanning processes aren’t Glowforge compatible!

This is a common misconception.

Veg-tan is the most consistent and probably1 the least toxic (especially compared to chrome tanning), but chrome tanned leathers and oil tanned leathers cut quite nicely as well. Just be sure your ventilation setup is leak-free and you should be just fine.

The #1 thing with leathers is to be 100% sure it’s real leather before cutting, and if it’s imitation find out exactly what it’s made from, as many fake leathers are PVC based, and that will definitely damage your machine.

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1 I say “probably” the least toxic because I have not empirically tested all the various tanning methods [there are a lot of them], but the fumes that come off burning chrome-tanned leathers are notoriously toxic. As I said, be sure your ventilation setup is leak-free and you should be good to go. As always a disclaimer: feel free to ignore me, I am just a random guy with a laser and these are your lungs. Use common sense, and understand that I may well not have a full understanding about what I’m saying.

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Thanks for the expansion/clarification! I had seen oil tanned leather and wondered if it was Glowforge compatible, I’m glad to learn that it is…

All the leather I use with the GF is purchased from Springfieldleather.com —- I use and highly recommend the brand Hermann Oak.

Purchasing the entire side is less expensive than individual cuts.

If you have any further questions I would be happy to help you.
Just private message me.

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and brain tanned leathers do too - and they’re marvelously soft. We have native tribes that still do brain tanning of deer that sell the hides if you ask. Lovely stuff to work with.

This might be apocryphal but the story is that every animal’s brain is just big enough to tan its hide. I’m thinking that’s probably a coincidence but then I don’t have insight into exactly what factors play into successful evolution. :slight_smile:

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Deer hide in general is so soft, it’s great stuff… but it chats so you have to be careful not to smudge your light colored hides.

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Dinosaurs might have spoiled that rule, if anyone had been around to make leather from them. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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