Hackathon Feb 16 - Leather Templates 2.0
![laser cutting acrylic leather template](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/2af33c192297317.65d91fe9617d6.jpg)
For this hackathon I wanted to make something that would actually help me in a part of my life rather than a toy or a cool but otherwise useless contraption. One of my favorite hobbies is leatherworking and I have just finalized a series of wallet designs that I intend to make and sell over the coming years. Whenever I make a new design I use a piece of construction paper to serve as a template that I trace onto the leather to show were to cut the edge and punch the holes. This is a great prototyping system but now that my designs are finalized I don't want my hard work to go to waste if I accidentally rip or lose the templates, so for this hackathon I used Fusion 360 to recreate my designs and laser-cut them out of acrylic sheets.
Note: descriptions of steps are under their respective photos
![laser cutting acrylic leather template](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/d8ce68192297317.65d91fe95f975.jpg)
Here is the first picture of the night. Fusion 360 is set up and I have drawn my first rectangle, the paper templates are strewn across the table and hopes are high
My process was very simple, but rather time consuming: I took precise measurements from the paper templates with calipers and then copied them into a Fusion sketch.
![laser cutting acrylic leather template](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/a8574f192297317.65d91fe95eca1.jpg)
One of my favorite things about Fusion is the level of precision that you can give to each project and I leaned heavily into that for this project
Here is a close up of one of the rounded edges of the wallet with the stitch holes being spaced out along the curve. I needed to take special care around the corners to make sure everything lined up well in the end.
![laser cutting acrylic leather template](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/dbfb6d192297317.65d91fe95deb3.jpg)
This part right here took the most time to complete but I was very happy with the final result
Since I'm making multiple templates that all get stitched together, I essentially designed each piece right on top of each other to ensure that they fit properly. The sketch above is the combination of three different pieces that overlap
![laser cutting acrylic leather template](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/c640f9192297317.65d91fe9635b9.jpg)
Here the designs are all finished and the only thing left to add are labels and my logo that will be etched into the acrylic
In order to get a nice clean sketch to download as a laser-cuttable file I extruded each piece and made a second sketch on the new face. This made sure that it was only the outline of the piece that was saved and none of the extra construction lines and points.
![laser cutting acrylic leather template](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/eb5e93192297317.65d91fe962594.jpg)
Here I am adding some labels in a fun font to make sure I know which piece is which and designate the front and back
I always label the paper templates specifically so that I know which side should face up on the leather, but labeling these also gave me the opportunity to etch my personally designed logo onto each piece as a nice professional touch.
![](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/4be286192297317.65d91fe89fd08.jpg)
![](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/36664b192297317.65d91fe89edd0.jpg)
Here are pictures of the finalized designs, labels and all.
![laser cutting acrylic leather template](https://mir-s3-cdn-cf.behance.net/project_modules/max_1200/fe02b4192297317.65d91fe960781.jpg)
Here I was staging the templates on the acrylic sheet to see how to cut them out most efficiently
When it came time to laser-cut the files I had spent the last three and a half hours working on, something was wrong with one of the template pieces of the larger wallet, so I was only able to laser-cut the templates for the smaller card wallet. Additionally something was also wrong with the text and logo that I had added to the sketches and so those didn't turn out quite like I had hoped.
All in all I only had two physical templates to show for in the end but with some troubleshooting I will be able to make the rest of them with little effort! I was very excited to complete this project and I am glad that I made something that I will use in my own life from now on!