Embossed leather belts can be deliciously stylish. However, the tooling for making these fashionable items is not always easy to come by, and it rarely comes cheap. What do we do when a tool is expensive and obscure? We 3D print our own, as [Myth Impressions] demonstrates.
The build is based around a Harbor Freight pipe bender. However, instead of the usual metal tooling, it’s been refitted with a printed embossing ring specifically designed for imprinting leather. The tool features raised ridges in an attractive pattern, and the pipe bender merely serves as a straightforward device for rolling the plastic tooling over a leather belt blank. Once cranked through the machine, the leather belt comes out embossed with a beautiful design.
It’s a neat project, and the 3D printed tooling works surprisingly well. The key is that leather is relatively soft, so it’s possible to use plastic tools quite effectively. With that said, you can even form steel with printed tooling if you use the right techniques.
We’ve seen some other neat leatherworking hacks before, like this nicely-modified Singer sewing machine.
Very nice. Really.
Agree!
em-Boss level perhaps?
One of the best uses for 3D printing, IMO. Plastic isn’t a great material, but it works great for molds and forms.
There’s a few materials that might be up to this task reasonably.
But, alternatively there’s a few options for using 3D prints as molds to make dies for this. Ceramic comes to mind.
Also, use it for a trial run of design, if it’s popular get it machined into a metal die. Cost wise it might not be too bad if you could get it done by a company like PCB Way. (Relatively speaking I mean. If you’re doing 10,000 belts)
Yeah but for a dozen or so belts this really hits the spot.
I understand you can use some filaments for lost wax casting. This would be great for casting brass if you can get enough detail in the cast with little to no cleanup. Were you thinking of 3D printing a mold to make a ceramic cast that could then be used to cast brass or 3D printing directly in ceramic to make a brass casting mold? Would be cool to see it done, though it would increase the cost a lot or require a different skill set to make your own.
But if you’re making 10K belts, you should definitely go with a commercial machine and custom rollers. The profit/belt would pay for the equipment in no time. But as a low volume maker, I would never make enough profit from the number of belts I make to pay for the machine. But at $5/embossing sleeve, I can totally afford to print a new sleeve after a few dozen belts if it starts to wear or break. At the numbers I’m selling, I expect the PLA sleeves I make to last a year or so. I think this is one of the big issues small makers have.
It’s so hard to transition from quality to quantity. If you have limited funds, you HAVE to make things by hand because you just don’t sell enough to pay for the expensive machines to do things faster. Sadly, it means charging a lot more per item due to the labor hours spent on each item. And we have to spend MORE time per item to make it of better quality and/or more unique than mass produced goods or it never sells. Finding that balance between labor spent on an item and the price that item is likely to sell for is one of the biggest hurdles. I think pricing my items is the hardest thing I do to tell the truth.
Exactly what I thougth!
The German colonial government of Tanganyika used a pipe bender at a locomotive repair shop to mint gold coins during WWI to make up for the lack of money due to the blockade by British forces.
Pipe benders are quite handy.
I sw it too in the movie African Queen.
When I made this machine, I had no idea it would get this much attention; especially outside the leather working crowd. I was just trying to find a way to have my own unique designs for leather stamping without paying hundreds for custom metal stamps. Thanks to all for your interest and support. I’m doing my best to keep up with comments and questions.
One thing possible with 3D printing would be a section that is different, like a rosette, logo or initials. Then the pattern is different as it goes along because you can swap it every n revolutions.