using Carvewright on leather?

[h2omind@yahoo.com]

Has anyone had any experience using this machine on leather to "carve" it?

I'm curious to know if the machine will carve leather belt blanks (about 3/8" thick). The depth of the cutting and shaping would only have to be about 1/8 - 1/4" deep. I spoke with a tech at the company and he expressed concern about the friction causing burning. But, that may not be true - or even a problem if it is minimal.

If you have any experience with leather or any thoughts, please let me know.

Many thanks!

[brdad]

How about trying a similar bit in a small hand router first? Can a router bit even cut leather?

[Pratyeka]

Has anyone had any experience using this machine on leather to "carve" it?

I'm curious to know if the machine will carve leather belt blanks (about 3/8" thick). The depth of the cutting and shaping would only have to be about 1/8 - 1/4" deep. I spoke with a tech at the company and he expressed concern about the friction causing burning. But, that may not be true - or even a problem if it is minimal.

If you have any experience with leather or any thoughts, please let me know.

Many thanks!

I used to hand carve leather. If the belt is glued to a sled so there's no chance of it moving, it might work. The carving bit should slice the leather no problem, but if the leather is loose it might catch on the spinning bit... Recommend extensive testing on small pieces before trying on a belt...

Speaking of belts, anyone tried to carve wooden belt buckles?

[atauer]

I used to hand carve leather. If the belt is glued to a sled so there's no chance of it moving, it might work. The carving bit should slice the leather no problem, but if the leather is loose it might catch on the spinning bit... Recommend extensive testing on small pieces before trying on a belt...

Speaking of belts, anyone tried to carve wooden belt buckles?

Not to my knowledge. Why don't you carve one and let us see the results...

[liquidguitars]

I used to hand carve leather. If the belt is glued to a sled so there's no chance of it moving, it might work. The carving bit should slice the leather no problem, but if the leather is loose it might catch on the spinning bit... Recommend extensive testing on small pieces before trying on a belt...

Speaking of belts, anyone tried to carve wooden belt buckles?

That's a good point it would have to be glued tight in place unless you pocket all the cuts basically removing all the wast with the bit.
some of the CNC guys use a water soluble glue like hide glue to fix abalone and then use water to remove later.

[Jeff_Birt]

Speaking of belts, anyone tried to carve wooden belt buckles?


What kind of buckle goes with a wooden belt? ;)

[bjbethke]

Has anyone had any experience using this machine on leather to "carve" it?

I'm curious to know if the machine will carve leather belt blanks (about 3/8" thick). The depth of the cutting and shaping would only have to be about 1/8 - 1/4" deep. I spoke with a tech at the company and he expressed concern about the friction causing burning. But, that may not be true - or even a problem if it is minimal.

If you have any experience with leather or any thoughts, please let me know.

Many thanks!
Where would you find leather 3/8 inch thick? Most Cow hide I buy is about 1/8 inch thick. Leather is made up of fiber. I don't think it would make a smooth carving. When I carve leather belts I use a Swivel Knife and stamping tools.

I have tried making PTN’s from my Leather Craft patterns.

[PCW]

I would have to agree with bjbethke. When you tool leather the old school way you use a swivel knife and forming tools to form the leather. Never removing the smooth shin on top.

Not to say it can't be done but I know you can not get the tooled look with the carvewright machine.

[hobbycentral]

I own hobby shops now, but my corporation name is Leather Crafters Inc. We used to be both a Tandy Leather store and a "Leather Factory" dealer. I made custom gun holsters. Even though I have a harness stitcher that stitches 3/4" leather, sometimes I would hand stitch leather holsters. To cut time I use a Dremel tool in a Dremel mini drill press to drill the stitching holes. Even with a Dremel tool, the bit burns the leather and turns it hard. Standard belt blanks usually fall between 7-8oz or 8-9oz (leather thickness is measured in weight (avg weight of one sqft). This would be between 1/8" and 5/64". Basically a high speed bit would burnish the leather. But, it would be feasible to set the machine to emulate leather carving. If the machine cut the carve lines with a small cutting bit and then did the rest of the pattern with a burnishing ball - obviously LHR or someone else would have to manufacture a burnishing bit. It is possible to emulate carving with a laser engraver, but it's not feasible for a belt. You also carve wet leather and I'm not sure I would put wet leather through this machine LOL. I had a couple of presses for making custom belts. The presses cost about $600 and the brown embossing wheels cost about $150-$300. You can crank a belt out in about 2 minutes. I'm not sure how long the CompuCarve would take to carve a 48" belt.

Bill
Hobby Central

[PCW]

Bill

I haven't hear that name (Tandy Leather) in a long time. Are they still around? If remember right they where owned by Radio Shack.

[hobbycentral]

They're around in a differnt form. Tandy originally owned Radio Shack, Color Tile, McDuff Electronics, Pier 1 Imports and a few others. Tandy spun off Tandy Leather years ago as Tandy Crafts. About 10 years ago Tandy Leathers Management ran the company into the ground (kind of like the big corps now.) They had a competitor " The Leather Factory " which was comprised of ex-Tandy Leather employees. Tandy Leather went bankrupt and was purchased by The Leather Factory. They are now Tandy Leather Factory - www.tandyleatherfactory.com . For those of you that sell wood crafts, you might want to give them a look - there are a lot of leather/wood projects that could be customized with the CarveWright/Compucarve.

Bill
Hobby Central

[Pratyeka]

If the machine cut the carve lines with a small cutting bit and then did the rest of the pattern with a burnishing ball - obviously LHR or someone else would have to manufacture a burnishing bit. You can crank a belt out in about 2 minutes. I'm not sure how long the CompuCarve would take to carve a 48" belt.

Bill
Hobby Central

How much pressure do you put on the burnishing ball to get good result? The CW doesn't put much downward pressure on the carving bit.

Carving a 48" belt, maybe 2 hours in raster mode, shorter in vector mode, depending on the complexity of the design.

Maybe a cnc vinyl sign cutter would work on leather to do the cutting part if the depth of the cut can be controled: http://www.bestblanks.com/graphtec.html

[Pratyeka]

Speaking of belts, anyone tried to carve wooden belt buckles?

I found an answer here:
http://www.artistreewoodart.com/Gifts/Buckles/bbkl.html

[chebytrk]

I found an answer here:
http://www.artistreewoodart.com/Gifts/Buckles/bbkl.html

Looks like something interesting to try huh? wonder how they place the other side of the buckle? Meaning the hook for the belt hole to clip on to as well as the belt guide loop? Don't know if glue could hold those in place or not.