Leather Cutting and CO2 Lasers - xTool P2

My wife is an avid leatherworker, how well can a CO2 laser like the xTool P2 help her with her projects? Using a laser to cut leather templates turned out to be a huge time saver. I still very much like the P2 and its features.

00:00 Intro
00:28 Man or Machine?
01:39 The Facehugger
02:25 Cut/Engrave Settings
03:58 Scaling Files
05:58 Convert to Vector
07:52 More Manipulation
08:32 Cut/Score Settings
09:04 Arranging Pieces
10:06 Cutting the Pieces
11:52 Leather Results
14:33 Final Thoughts?

#xtoolp2 #xtoolp2s #xtool #leathercraft

[etchmfg]

Great vid!
Some tips that I've learned the hard way:
- You can buy 4-6in masking tape to save some masking time. I've tried medium-tak "maskng paper" and it does not stick to the leather at all.
- I run the tape beyond the endges to hold down the leather a bit (it even works somewhat on honeycomb). This is usually enough to save most of the sheet if there is piece that curls up and causes a minor crash (normally, it would move it easily and ruin your day. It's also helpful if a piece doesn't cut all the way through for some reason and you want to run another pass on it (I try to remove the individual pieces from the sheet vs. picking up the whole sheet for this reason).
- Veg tan is the easiest to cut of all the varieties I've tried. Chrome tanned, buffalo, and very thick leather do well with multiple cut passes vs. a single, high-powered, pass as it can heat up the leather causing it to shrink (disaster!). On my 70w CO2, I use 4-5 passes at 60mm/sec & 20% power for 5oz chrome tanned leather.
- Keep the masking on until you have all the ash cleaned up--it stains the surface and is hard to get off without

Happy lasering!

[RichardThompsonCA]

If you don't want to sand off the char around the edges try this: Paint the back of the leather with clear acrylic and let dry, this will seal it. Cover the front with Vvivid blue stencil vinyl or similar product, this will seal the top (this won't work on the back because of how rough it is). Laser your leather. Before you remove the vinyl, swirl the pieces in a tray of standard bleach for about 10-20 seconds. This will dissolve all the charring. Rinse immediately with clean water, or neutralize in vinegar. Then remove your vinyl. If you don't protect the rest of the leather the bleach will destroy it in only a few seconds, it's very aggressive. This technique will also allow you to get into any small holes. I make leather hat patches and if you don't get the soot out from the thread holes it will transfer to the thread and then to the hat, making a mess of everything.

[bami]

11:45 I think it's because of the tanning agents used in producing leather, burning (or cutting it with a laser) releases all kind of fun stuff like chromium and bromide. As long as your ventilation is setup correctly it shouldn't be a real problem.

Nice result though, would be great if you could later upload a small video on the finished piece! Thank you for the upload, was really interesting!

[ManIkWeet]

PDF files often already have vector graphics inside, you might be losing that information when converting to an image!
Have you tried converting the PDF files to some vector format, like DWG or SVG? Might save you some trouble tracing the images again :)

[vogelindustries]

Really intresting video. This may be a more craft question for your wife, Why did you decide not to laser cut all the thread holes?

[nico]

Sorry if you already mentioned but I wasn't able to watch the full video. What are your thoughts regarding this type of machines propietary software? It's known that brand lasers such as xtool and trotec do have a great customer service but im wondering in the long run how is it going to turn out.

I've seen lots of old-ish co2 lasers for sale that are software-locked and thereby require a change of driver's board. Unlike other chinese rebrands such as omtech

[GarethLewin]

Great video. I'm so close to getting a P2, I've had it in the cart a few times, this has pushed me closer. I wonder what other projects I could find on Etsy, leather seems like a lot of work and I'd like to find stuff more for a noob like me.

[ThatRobHuman]

a question and a heads up if you don't mind:

- you said cut was 40%; what's the wattage of your laser; ie: 40% of what? at least in vague terms.
- you can get 12" wide rolls of masking tape. If you grab em, I would go with the blue tape rather than the beige: every roll of beige I've ever gotten has a propensity to stick to itself and makes unrolling it a pain. the blue stuff is a dream.

[Sillyzombie]

i still want a laser but the biggest purchase i've made besides my car and a mattress was a bambu lab p1s that i just got with ams so sadly its just out of my price range

[SarahKchannel]

I have a fun C02 engraving story. In about 2011 I bought my first CO2 80W laser machine.
A friend of mine was in charge of bidding for the FIFA World Cup 2022, that was supposed to get presented
to the Emir (Ruler of Qatar), in a leather binder. We had 1 leather binder - the one and only.

It was nerve wrecking to find the settings without testing it on the final object.
A day after that engraved leather binder with the FIFA World Cup Logo, was presented to the Emir,
to get his endorsement to bid for the Word Cup.

So I ended up engraving the first official document binder made from leather on a CO2 laser.

[JonathanRansom]

Gotta love the smell of burning flesh! Haha