Question on Rastering Leather

[Roy Nielsen]

A coworker asked if I could do some work on leather. I know that plain leather works fine and I did a small sample on a piece of scrap; he was floored at how it turned out. My question is, is it safe to me, the laser, and the leather to lightly raster leather that has been treated with oils, waxes, or whatever else one might put on leather to keep it soft and/or water resistant. Although I won't be cutting for this job, I'd be interested to know the same for cutting.

Thanks,
Roy

[Chad Fitzgerald]

yes it is safe. can stink some. i do alot of leather and have had no problems. i usually apply leather conditioner first, let dry then engrave. it cuts fine, but i dont do much of that just because its can char the edges pretty good.
if you are rastoring a large piece, make sure you have the edges held down with something, the heat can cause the leather to curl.
hope this helps
chad

[Roy Nielsen]

Thanks Chad. Think I'll try using some of the oils and conditioners that I might encounter on some scrap leather and try rastering while watching like a hawk.

I've done a little testing with some unconditioned scraps, the smell hasn't been bad and I noticed the smell was completely gone after a couple days on the last piece that I rastered.

[Mike Null]

Roy

there have been several threads on lasering leather. A search should turn up plenty of reading.