Thank you for the kind words and taking the time to say so, I really appreciate it!

Thank you, it's a lot of fun to work with!

Thank you very much!

No offense taken at all, it's something I'm really working on! I'm glad you liked it! The leather is so fun to work with!

Thank you very much!

Thank you!

Thank you!

Thank you so much 😀

Glad you liked it!

It sure is! thank you.

Thank you for the kind words! Cheers!

Thank you! Cheers!

Thank you! Cheers!

Thank you!

Thank you!

Correct, I didn't use the gadget and didn't have any sharp corners. I also don't like that I can't tell it what side is the offcut and which side is the project piece, so sometimes it puts it's lead ins on the wrong side and I can't change that, unless there has been some update to the gadget. I find manually doing my lead ins lets me control it better.

​@@ToolsToday by 'lead ins' do you mean the starting point of each cut? With the dragknife gadget, you either create a node and assign it as the starting point, or you can choose an existing node and make it the starting point. I cut leather with a drag knife frequently and I find the gadget to be invaluable, although I've never tried not using the gadget. All that I have to do is assign starting points to appropriate nodes so that the knife always begins in the same direction for each cut. And of course, the gadget will allow sharp corners. The way that it accomplishes this is quite fascinating. Having only used the gadget, I don't have a basis of comparison...but the gadget is fast and easy. Great project, by the way! :)

Thank you! When I set a lead in, I'm ramping in outside the cut line of the material so that way the knife is oriented in the correct direction before I get to the line I want to cut. Is there a way to start outside the cut path with the drag knife? I'll admit, I haven't tried it much so don't have a ton of experience with it, but it was orienting the knife in the wrong direction when using it and cutting into my finished piece instead of the waste when trying to orient it.

@@ToolsToday Understood. With the Drag Knife gadget, you can start the cut directly on the line in most cases. So you don't always need to have a shallow lead-in cut for the sole purpose of orienting the knife. Actually, it's best to avoid them. When you get the tool set up, you'll orient the knife in the direction that all of your cuts will begin. And then you assign starting points that will use this same orientation for every cut by assigning proper nodes as starting points. So let's say that you set up the knife facing to the right meaning that you will want to start each cut from left-to-right. In many cases where you are making a complete circle, square, (or any closed vector), the drag knife will end with the same orientation since the end of the cut will be back at the beginning of the cut. So the knife is back to being oriented left-to-right after cutting. Then when the knife is lifted to go the next part, you'll make sure that the node for this next part is also set to a point where the knife will start cutting left-to-right. This works for most complete shapes. If you don't have complete shapes (closed vectors), you still can (in most cases) choose a node that will still give you a starting point that will begin cutting with the same orientation as the last cut. For instance, if a cut ends pointing north, assign a node to the next cut that will also cause the knife to start cutting to the north. But....there will be times that you simply can't do this. In this case...if the node that you chose as a starting point is making a shallow lead in that is cutting the non-waste side of the material, switch the starting node to the opposite side. The software is making an assumption as to which way the blade is oriented. If the software is incorrect in this assumption, then just switch the starting node to the opposite side and the lead in will then be on the waste side. I discussed this over at the vectric forum a while back. This should also cover the topic well... forum.vectric.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=40457&p=293987#p293987

We will do another leather project in the future and also offer plans for it where it will go deep into that and show you how to do it. You would need to be using something like the Vectric software as Carbide Create doesn't have some of the features to control the drag knife and get it to cut where you want, specifically the lead and ramp into the cut.

Thank you! That certainly would be cool!

Thank you! I use Vectric V-Carve Pro software available on our website.

That would be a cool one! Unfortunately, I don't have any horses and don't ride very often.

I got it from Weaver Leather Supply

Not on this project. I needed a little bit of material between the pieces for the vacuum to hold down. I could have gotten a little closer, but really wouldn't have saved a ton of material with the way these pieces laid out.

Correct I set it using the drag knife which is accounting for that offset and didn't change it with the drill bits. With this setup, I'm setting the x and y zero to the drag knife so it's essentially offsetting the drill bits, and hole locations, for me by the same distance the drag knife is offset. It resulted in having everything nicely aligned!

​@@ToolsTodayI guess looking at your design further my question is answered. The knife is indeed dragging on the correct line, which is off axis where the cut takes place but lines parallel to the direction of travel are directly in line with the spindle center, they are just cutting with a slight trail. Very cool process and new skill. I really enjoy your videos. I actually just crudely converted my CNC bed to a vacuum table because of watching how much more streamlined your process is.

That's awesome to hear thank you for the kind words and taking the time to say so! Correct, it took some time for me to wrap my head around, but it worked surprisingly well!

I certainly could have, this was an easy way to not have to program the offsets and do it on the machine instead.

Thank you very much for the kind words and taking the time to say so. It really means a lot to me!

I didn't know how much leather it was going to take until I had everything designed out.

@@ToolsTodaywith this set up can you cut out from odd size leather? Not ever hide you can get a perfect square from.

Yes, definitely. Check out the full length video we did on making a mallet recently. I show how I use an odd size piece there, it would be the same technique with leather.