What happens when you want to make a custom handbag with some handy tech features, and have access to a nice laser cutter? You end up doing what [Christian] did: design a assemble a Woman’s Handbag made of Laser-Cut Leather with iPhone charger and LED Light.
The design of the bag was made in Adobe Illustrator and sent off to a Epilog Legend 36EXT laser cutter located in the hackerspace located near [Christian] in Vienna. Once the parts were precision cut, traditional leather sewing methods were used to assemble the handbag (with a little help from a shoe cobbler).
The interior of the bag was lined with old blue jeans and a white LED, which is wired and held into place with conductive thread. Powered by a coin cell and controlled by your choice of a button, or a slide switch, the light helps locating items in the deep bag.
Slide a standard USB battery pack in one of the pockets of the old jeans and you are ready for a night out on the town. Join us after the break for a video showing the design, construction and features of this practical project.
I did some laser marking on leather. It really stinks. Similar to burning flesh / hair. Use a good fume extraction setup.
One thing neither text nor video can clue you into is smell. Holy hell does lasering leather stink. Not campfire and sizzling steak. More like you shaved a hobbit’s feet, used that hair to mop up his BO, divided it in two, stuffed it up your nose, and then lit it on fire.
Overpowering stench.
The good news is that your HVAC should be up to code and if it’s not or it’s underpowered and has been giving your plastic fumes this whole time… you’ll know.
The problem though is the odor does not get out of the leather after you cut it. It stays with the item. It diminishes over time but does not really go away.
We’ve tried lasering pancakes as well. Same deal, smelled foul, tasted foul.
Hot summer day? Want a freezy? No scissors? No problem. Laser. BLECH. Your mouth is on the lasered plastic bit. Everything tastes like poison.
Fancy-shaped apple slices weren’t bad. The apple was overcarmelized but at least it didn’t make your retch.
Pictures of the fruit, please? That sounds nifty.
Smell wise, waterjetting or CNC knife cutting leather works very well. Lasering it does not.
Also, there is $205 bill of materials on this. Not counting time to plan it out, draft it, assemble it or anything else.
dang. Not to mention it looks like dreck. Probably could’ve gotten 10 actual fake gucci bags at the flea market for $205
People, please! Stop bitching about how laser cutting leather stinks. Someone has invented a way to illuminate the inside of a handbag! Hours of valuable life-time spent waiting outside apartment doors or at restaurant tables while some very important person is digging through the contents of a hand bag, pulling out random items of personal hygiene and finally (almost terminally) finding an item which I would just have had to pull out of the right pocket.
Handbags are ugly and impractical. Now they are only ugly.
L*I*K*E
Hmm, it may have saved those embarrassing “what IS that smell” from the fish left over goody bag that got forgotten.
Does anyone else feel that the title of the video seems to imply that a laser cutter was created from an iPhone charger and LED light?
Why do you need a laser cutter to cut leather, when you can simply print the form out on a piece of paper, cut it out and chalk the outline on a piece, and then use a pair of scissors or a sharp knife – you know, the way they ordinarily do it.
The edges of the pieces are turned inwards for sewing anyways, so there’s absolutely no advantage to the laser cutter’s precision. There’s simply no practical, aesthetic, or other reason for it except to say that you’ve laser-cut a handbag.
There is a Finnish noun to describe this kind of endeavour, “erikoisuudentavoittelu”, which means the act of seeking peculiarity for the sake of vanity.
It is more accurate, quicker and it’s easier to punch holes but you are correct that printing out labels and hand cutting them would achieve similar end results for this particular project. Some “industrial leather cutting equipment” amounts to a person with a chainmail glove, a 20+ foot long “plotter” printed guide and an oscillating knife that cuts through a few dozen layers of vacuum held down leather or fabric at the same time and then it is all sewn together by hand.
But accuracy isn’t even needed here. You basically just take two pieces of leather, put them face to face, mark where the seam goes, stitch it and then turn it over so the extra leather is left on the inside. You basically sow the whole thing outside in, cut off the extra, add the lining and then turn it outside out.
And what could be quicker than printing out a simple sheet on your desktop printer rather than sending your work off to a laser cutter?
On another point: the laser cutter cost 30 euros to hire. Your printer costs 5 cents a page.
“erikoisuudentavoittelu”
So it is named after a fashion designer named “Erik”?
Yeah. He was a viking called Erik of Isuud, and accoring to the sagas he built his boats out of birch instead of aspen because it was “beautifully golden like nothing else”. He didn’t even want to tar them, but instead spent a fortune on imported linseed oil. He took them out on the sea, but the birchwood boats were so heavy that once loaded they started taking in water over the sides, and the whole crew drowned in a light storm half-way to Denmark for the vanity of their leader.
So ever since, people have been calling other hipsterious individuals as “searching the Erik of Isuud”.
“If women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy!”