Laser Cutting, Leathercraft

Leather Hair Barrette

February 14, 2024

Yet another valentine’s day is here. I decided to make something special for my wife and only use scraps I had in the workshop. I had a nice piece of very thick leather I got when I ordered a custom apron for metalworking. It is somewhere around 3-4mm thick. For the wooden stick I used an old bamboo flower support that had been in some flowerpot for the last few years.

Overall I’m very happy with the result. In the end it is my first leather project.

Final result.
I added her initials as a special touch.

(Mini) Build Log:

The wooden stick was in a pretty bad shape but that’s all I had. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper while spinning it in a drill.
After estimating the correct length, my trusty bandsaw cut it very evenly.
After another go in the drill with sandpaper, I sharpened the other end with my belt sander and treated it with teak oil.
For the actual leather part, I made a very simple design with 6mm holes for the wooden stick.
I ended up making two versions of it; one which is slightly smaller and another larger one. Here I’m engraving the smaller version without my wife’s initials.
To clean it up, I went around all the cut surfaces with tape which picked up most of the charred residue. The smell of burned leather is not very nice though…
As I don’t have any leathercraft tools, I faked the nice finish on the edges by first engraving a groove around the piece before cutting through. It ended up looking very nice.
I’m very happy with the result, it ended up looking much more professional than I could have expected. Though, in the future I will need to reserve few days for airing the cut pieces as the burning leather smell is very potent.

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