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kyle bonnell
05-02-2011, 12:59 PM
Looking to see if anyone has laser cut horsehide before. I'll be buying some for a holster I'll be making and thought it would be neat to use the laser to cut it out and maybe burn my name into it.

Neil Pabia
05-02-2011, 3:04 PM
I tried a little bit of it for a customer, stunk as bad as regular leather but nowhere near as bad os wool felt.

kyle bonnell
05-02-2011, 3:54 PM
Welllllll....how did it do? Did you vector cut it or burn in an image?

Neil Pabia
05-02-2011, 3:57 PM
I rastered a running horse and then vector cut a circle around it for them, it seemed to be very similar to tooling leather.

Bill Cunningham
05-03-2011, 8:57 PM
I think the Epilog manual has a starting point for leather.. Is there a difference between Horse Hide, and Cow Hide? Cow hide cuts and rasters just fine, but every time I've come in contact with horse hide, it's still been attached to the horse!

Neil Pabia
05-03-2011, 9:14 PM
If it was me making the holster, I would take a shot at it as long as it was for me and not a customer first. I just did a small piece of deer hide for a customer sample and found that to be a challenge but the horsehide was very similar to cowhide.

kyle bonnell
05-04-2011, 12:46 PM
It will be for me. I was thinking of washing it somehow to get rid of the smell. Luckily I have enough to run a few samples first. I may end up just rastering an image on it. Thanks guys. Ill let you know next week when it gets here how it all goes.

Gary and Jessica Houghton
05-05-2011, 10:39 AM
I've never tried horse hide, but I've lasered plenty of cow. If the piece of hide is not too thick, than I have found a similar setting to wood makes a great mark first time out. Cutting it, I have found using the epilog manual to be pretty spot on. Good luck and post pictures when you are done. We'd love to see them.

kyle bonnell
05-16-2011, 3:49 PM
Got my holsters made. I was surprised when I cut the horse hide. This stuff cuts like butter and it doesn't smell nearly as bad as cow leather. Actually, give it a day and it doesn't smell at all. I used 100% power and 5% speed on my 30 watt ULS. Nice and dark letters when I rastered my name in it also.

I didn't cut the holster with the laser. I got all my stuff from the UPS guy and I couldn't wait to get a holster made. So I ended up cutting it by hand.

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k300/kbonnell/17da7333.jpg