Leather- everything about it

[Darren Null]

...Not a clue, but after looking for 2 months I just found the one bloke in 50 miles who sells sheets of leather.
I know there has been a couple of leather threads recently, but soap, mask, cutting...I want to know everything. And I only have a small bit of leather to make good.

[John Barton]

I want to know everything about it as well and I have been working with leather for 20 years.

As with any substrate you have to experiment and save/document your settings. The most important thing to remember is that leather is skin, it's celluar and reacts differently than synthetics. And each type of leather will cut differently. As I found out recently, oil tan (at least what I get from two different suppliers) is very difficult (at the moment impossible) to cut with my 60w Chinese laser.

Do not mask with tape. It raises the grain on the leather. I recently saw a shop masking with wet newspaper. I tried it and it works. You can also mask with cardboard and magnets. I use lots of magnets to hold my pieces in place. We put scotch tape on the magnets and made a pull tab so that they are easy to remove from the table.

As with any substrate try and get your piece as flat as possible. You can wet leather and flatten it - as it dries it will stay flat. Then you can rewet it and mold it if need be.

Be careful about buying split leathers because sometimes the top layer is actually plastic. Ask.

Experiment. Did I mention that?

Look around the web, there are lots of laser etched and laser cut things with leather. A big thing these days is to get bags with laser cut filigree designs on them.

Hope this helps.

John

[Mike Null]

While it's possible to laser all leathers I have found the best results are with vegetable tanned leather or tooling leather of a light tan/brown color.

It's stinky when cutting but the laser is an ideal tool for marking and cutting.

I prep the material with a natural colored paste wax and clean gently with a damp rag after lasering. Then I re-coat it with wax and polish it.

It is surprisingly durable.

[Scott Shepherd]

I had a talented guy teach me how to make a specific leather product several years ago (all by hand). I spent a fair amount of time with him and he used to bring this beautiful leather to make the items. I'd go to Tandy and show them the leather and they'd tell me they couldn't get it. I asked him, he'd tell me that he'd get it from New York and he had to go there and hand pick it out. While traveling with him once, we went into a place in North Carolina, they had stacks of it. He went through them all and finally picked some out. He bought what they had, and they said they wouldn't get any more.

Went with him to a place in Seattle, same deal.

What he taught me is that leather comes from all over the world. Different leathers are better for different applications. What you are buying today might have come from India or Pakistan, or Italy, and once it's gone, you'll possibly never see it again. It's very much a commodities market.

The lesson I learned was that if you find something that works well and you like it, then buy all of it. All of it, because there's a good chance you'll never find it again.

That said, that's not the same as your standard cow hide which is fairly consistent and can be bought over and over from a place like Tandy.

[John Barton]

I had a talented guy teach me how to make a specific leather product several years ago (all by hand). I spent a fair amount of time with him and he used to bring this beautiful leather to make the items. I'd go to Tandy and show them the leather and they'd tell me they couldn't get it. I asked him, he'd tell me that he'd get it from New York and he had to go there and hand pick it out. While traveling with him once, we went into a place in North Carolina, they had stacks of it. He went through them all and finally picked some out. He bought what they had, and they said they wouldn't get any more.

Went with him to a place in Seattle, same deal.

What he taught me is that leather comes from all over the world. Different leathers are better for different applications. What you are buying today might have come from India or Pakistan, or Italy, and once it's gone, you'll possibly never see it again. It's very much a commodities market.

The lesson I learned was that if you find something that works well and you like it, then buy all of it. All of it, because there's a good chance you'll never find it again.

That said, that's not the same as your standard cow hide which is fairly consistent and can be bought over and over from a place like Tandy.

I completely agree. I have made limited and unique cue cases for 17 years. If you find a particular leather that really works well and you know you will be using it then be sure to buy all that you can because it may not be available anymore. This mostly applies to chrome tanned nappas and prints. Very often a tannery will make a run of custom leather for a customer, typically a furniture manufacturer and they will end up with extra at the end of the run. The furniture manufacturers also dump off their remnants to dealers. This is where most of the special leather comes from.

Another thing to study would be pyrography, also known as the art of wood burning. It's used on leather as well. I have only skimmed the information available but I could imagine that some tips could be gleaned there which may be of use.

www.leatherworkers.net is a great resource for all things leather. Very very friendly people on the forums there. You might even pick up some business.

[Darren Null]

Some good advice there. Thanks chaps.

EDIT: Good trick putting tape on the magnets. I glue magnets to little blocks of marble, which also provides weight enough to straighten out (slightly) warped plywood up to 3mm.