Cutting Leather

[WatchThoseFingers]

Greetings all:

I am thinking of using a scroll saw to cut leather. The leather I work with is in the 6-7oz range (a little more than the thickness of a nickle). So it is tough to quickly cut with hand tools.

I have zero experience with scroll saws and so I was hoping to get a few questions answered.

1. Can scroll saws be effectively used to cut leather without shredding the leather?

2. What type of blade should be used? The patterns I work with have some turns in them but nothing too tight.

3. I was thinking of the Sears scroll saw. Is this considered a decent saw?

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/produ...seBVCookie=Yes

4. I read in another post about cutting leather with scroll saw, that the poster used a "guard." Is this something that is used to hold your project down so it does not move while being cut?

Thank you all for your comments.
(btw, my first post!)

~Robert

[workin for wood]

Great question ! I have no idea if you can cut leather effectively, but see someone is cutting stacks of paper, so why not? I know the guard is generally standard with all saw, I think it's like a federal law although i tossed mine in a drawer, it gets in my way, the hawk guard is way too big. The guard is just like a guard on a sewing machine. It's like two little fingers that press down on your wood as you cut, to help stop it from bouncing upwards, and helps stop fingers from getting into the blade. My old craftsman has a great guard, it's exactly that, two little flexible metal fingers, but my Hawk has a huge akward piece of plastic that does nothing but get in the way.

[Litlhof]

Robert : My wife and I operated a custom leather shop for a good many years, and my advice is for you to use standard leather knives. Head knives(the half moon kind) come in many sizes and will cut the hardest 18/20 sole leather. Leather of 7/8 can essily be cut with good quality leather shears, except for very small curves. If you prefer a knife you use like a pencil, use a plain wood carving knife. Litlhof(Walt Rollison)

[WatchThoseFingers]

Walt:

For some reason my replies are not working, so I get to start a whole new thread in order to "reply" to your post.

Currently I use a craft knife with a hooked/curved blade to do my cutting. I find that I need to go over an area a number of times in order to cut through the leather.

It is very time consuming.

My concern with the head knives is that I will have the same problem as with the craft knives. That is having to go over the same area more than once.

I plan on making leather phone cases-a lot of them. So speed is very important.

A punch press would be the ieal solution, but those are big bucks. I am hoping a scroll saw is the right solution for reducing the cutting time.

~Robert

[Gill]

Hi Robert

Unfortunately, your posts got caught up in our anti-spam measures. You'll find this is less of a problem once the forum software 'gets to know you', as it were. Anyway, I've done a bit of housekeeping and hopefully everything's hunky dory now .

Gill

[Litlhof]

Robert:
If you're cutting phone cases, I assume most of your cuts are straight. As in traditional woodwork, at least half of an apprentice's years in the trade are spent in learning to sharpen tools. Make sure your tools are razor sharp.
Having said that, I wonder if you are trying to cut these cases out one at a time? I don't mean you should stack them, but if you are cutting a whole side or a back of 7/8 leather, you should be able to use your straight edge to cut at least a 5' run of any width you want. Louise and I used to cut 5 sides at a time of 8/9 or 10/11 with our strap cutter. I hope this helps, Walt.

[Mick Walker]

Robert, I have never tried to cut leather on my saw but I would think if you sandwiched the leather between 2 pieces of 1/8" plywood you could cut it with no problem. The blade that would work best i wouldn't know either. I would think some good leather cutting tools would be less expensive than a scrollsaw unless you aleady own one. Most scrollers don't use the hold down attachment on their saws. Just my 2¢ worth.

[workin for wood]

If I had some leather, other than something I wear, I'd try cutting it for you. I'm thinking a blade with alot of fine teeth.