I have a friend that has recently become handicapped from a major injury to her arm/shoulder. Her major source of income has been leatherwork for the past few years, and I'm trying to find a way to make it a bit easier on her. Initially, I thought of doing a 5-10w diode laser, realized that was not big enough and started looking at a tube laser in the 120-150w range, and then realized that was too much - e.g. the ventilation, smoke, cooling system, etc... Then I stumbled across the Donek Tools drag knife video where they demo'd cutting out a snowflake in leather... This appears to be the perfect solution for what I'm after, but I haven't seen any builds dedicated to a drag knife assembly. they're all 'add-on' parts for cnc mills that the spindle remains unpowered. I'm not sure how much I really need to build up the xy table if I want a system that is strictly for this type of use, since the z axis motion will be limited to maybe 5mm of travel to bring the knife down into the leather, and i'm not carrying a giant spindle assembly ( I hope).
