Drag Knife to cut leather and card

Hi

Ordered my 1F and is due in UK end of Feb, so I’m getting things ready.
Now my wife let me order my new toy so it’s only fair that I put it to good use to help her out on her projects.
She has asked if I could cut paper/card or leather and I said I would need a drag knife (I believe, open to other ideas)

Now I have seen 2 drag knifes very similar (links below), just asking if anyone has used these, would they work ok with 1F and vcarve, and do they have limitations

Dog river drag knife

Donek drag knife

Any feed back found be appreciated as a newbie to CNCs!
Thanks

Gary

You could build your own . Was discuss in another post. https://www.facebook.com/groups/onefinitycnc/permalink/386031559216379

2 Likes

Hi blaghislain

Thanks for the quick reply, unfortunately I’m old school and don’t have a FB account (I know!), will take a look on the wife’s account later

I have been investigating this as a future addition as well. My research shows that for me the best functioning long term solution would be a tangential knife, but these are quite expensive, and will require hardware and software modifications.

Although I have not used a drag knife, I believe it would work best for thin material like leather. As the material gets thicker, tight/90 degree turns become more challenging and prone to ripping as the blade spins to follow the new direction - the tangential knife is lifted and turned under software control. The other challenge I saw was in the proper hold-down of the often light weight and thin material. Again, it looks like the best solution - vacuum bed - is again also the most expensive. Creative use of tape would work in many cases I imagine.

Would enjoy hearing how it works for you.

Hi TMToronto

Yes I was looking at a vacuum bed, hopefully I will be able to utilise a old section of bed material from a cnc from work it’s a awesome machine but it does cost £250,000!
It has awesome tangential knife that’s extremely quick
Zund cutting leather with knife

I can only dream :slightly_smiling_face:

I saw the Zund and a few other machines and cutter tools as well - very nice products but at a different level for sure. The one that I am able to give more serious consideration to is the Stepcraft OTK-3 ($499US), which is an oscillating tangential knife. I am a maker at heart, and fortunately have time and patience, so building my own is not outside the realm of possibility.

I did a search on YouTube using “CNC Dragknife” and got 12 hits. That should give you quite a bit of content…