Introduction: Monogram Leather Clip-on Bow Tie

About: Just another tinkerer

Hello everyone,


Today I'd like to share with you how I created this spiffy leather bow tie with a twist.


It's made from some off cut/scrap leather and is personalised using a very inexpensive laser engraver, perfect to give as some personalised gifts to friends and family or to hoard for yourself!


Let's get going...

Step 1: What You Will Need:

To make this Instructable you will need the following:

- A piece of left over/off cut leather that's at least 25cm X 6cm

Off-cut leather

I would only use synthetic leather if your laser engraver has very good ventilation or if you are making it without the engraving.

- A sharp hobby knife

- A ruler ( preferably metal )

- Contact adhesive

- Clip on bow tie hardware

Bow tie clips

Alternatively you could use adjustable bow tie straps

Bow tie strap

- Laser engraver

This is required if you want to engrave onto your leather, I used a inexpensive 500mw laser module attached to my CNC but you can also purchase a complete laser engraver on Amazon for under $200 or even add a laser kit to your 3D printer.

Laser engraver

DIY laser add on kit

- Safety goggles corresponding to you laser wavelength

- Soldering Iron

Step 2: Engraving Your Leather:

If you are interested in converting your 3D printer into a laser engraver here is a great Instructable by Gosse Adema to follow -> 3D Printer Laser Modification

To make your bow tie more unique we are going to be engraving the leather with your own personalised monograph.

To start with you need to create your own design, I used Vectric Aspire as this is the software I always use when designing something for my CNC, but you can use any design software...EVEN MICROSOFT PAINT!!

You'll want to size your design according to the front of your bow tie, mine is 12cm X 6cm.

When you're done you'll want to export your design as either a SVG or JPEG image. This will depend on your design, as mine has fine details I exported it as an SVG this allowed me to only engrave the outlines and cut the engraving time from 4 hours to only 30 minutes.

Next we move our design over to the laser engraving software.

I only use GRBL Laser as it has been the only software that's always reliable, Import your design and adjust the settings according to your engraver.

My settings are:

500mm/min speed

S/min 0 - S/max 1000

M3/M5 constant power

This is with a 500mw 405nm laser and will vary depending on your setup.

Always wear appropriate eye protection when working with lasers!

Step 3: Cut to Size:

Now that the leather is engraved with your own design we can cut it to size.

When cutting the leather make sure you use a new blade in your hobby knife to get nice clean cuts and make the cuts away from your hands.

The middle piece of the bow tie is 1.5cm wide and approximately 7cm long, you will trim the excess when you are done.

The main piece will be 25cm long and 6cm wide.

Because the leather is much thicker than normal cloth I decided to taper the corners that folds into the back, this allows the bow tie to be pinched much easier.

Using the pictures as reference, I marked 15mm for the top and bottom and then cut from the corner where my design stopped ( 5cm from material corner ).

Step 4: Gluing Your Bow Tie:

We can now start shaping our bow tie.

I started by applying glue to both the ends of the main piece of leather and to the middle where they will land when folded over, I also added some glue to the clip to hold it in place.

Wait for your glue to become less tacky and then fold over the two sides and stick them between the clips as shown.

Next I smeared a small line of glue around the middle of the bow tie, this will let us pinch it into its final shape and it will keep that shape while you put on the centre strip of leather.

Now take the strip of leather that will go in the middle of the bow tie and smear the back of it with glue, this will adhere to the bead of glue we put on previously and keep everything together.

Once the glue has dried a bit you can go ahead and wrap it around the middle of your bow tie making sure that it is centred and then trim the excess in the back.

And that's it your bow tie should now be 99.9% complete.

Step 5: Burnish the Edges:

What is burnishing?

Burnishing leather is the process of sealing and smoothing the rough, raw edges of a leather item to produce professionally finished edges.

There are many techniques, most involve sanding, beveling, polishing, burnishing, and buffing.

The traditional way of burnishing leather is very labour intensive and takes a long time that's why I started using using this technique to finish off all of my leather projects, It gives a similar result and only takes a fraction of the time.

Start by heating up your soldering iron. If you have a temperature controlled one you have to set it to the highest setting.

When it's up to temperature clean the tip, you want to make sure you get all previous residue off of the tip or risk staining your leather.

Now start running the soldering iron tip along the edge of your leather, I did this after my bow tie was formed as it is easier to do if the leather is stiff.

Continue until you are happy with the result.

Just be careful to not keep the iron in one place for too long.

As you can see in the pictures I just did a quick pass on this bow tie to get rid of the rough edge.

Step 6: You're Done!

If you have some you can give your bow tie a wipe down with some leather care creme and then you're all done!

Now slap on your spiffy new personalised bow tie and enjoy all the compliments on your next Zoom call.

Happy making!

Leather Challenge

Runner Up in the
Leather Challenge