Sandpaper, emery cloth, a sanding block and sanding sticks laid out for sanding leather edges before burnishing.
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Sanding Edges Before You Burnish

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis

The slicker only shines what the sandpaper already made flat.

Sanding leather edges before you burnish is the step people skip when they’re in a hurry, and it’s the one that decides whether the burnish closes into a hard line or rubs up into a fuzzy shine over a lumpy edge. A cut edge is rarely square. Layers that were glued sit a hair off each other, a knife wandered for an inch, glue squeezed out and dried. A slicker can’t fix any of that. It only polishes what’s there. So the money question for a buyer is small and specific: what grit, what holds the grit, and does it need a motor.

Video: Burnishing Edges on My Natural Veg Tan Leather Briefcase, from Marcellino NY Briefcase Maker on YouTube.

That’s a video from my channel of burnishing edges on a natural veg-tan briefcase. I hand burnish for tradition. Everything in this guide happens before that clip starts.

What sanding is for

Flat, flush and clean. Shine comes later.

Hands sanding a thick leather strap edge flat with a wrapped sanding block in a stitching pony.

Sailrite’s guide to finishing leather edges puts sanding first in all three of its methods, burnished, dyed and painted, because it gives a straight, flush and smooth edge, which matters most where several pieces are glued together. It also strips glue that crept onto the edge, which the page warns could ruin the finish. Its rule for the doubtful is short: “when in doubt, sand more.”

Weaver Leather Supply’s page on burnishing leather adds the second reason. For a glossier edge, it says, use a high grit sandpaper on the edge before burnishing. Coarse grit levels. Fine grit polishes the fibers enough that the slicker has something smooth to close.

That’s the whole job. Two passes of thinking, not one.

My opinion: the first pass is the one that matters, and it’s the one beginners rush, because it looks like nothing is happening. You’re not trying to make it pretty yet. You’re trying to make two layers of leather into one face, the way a plasterer floats a wall flat before anyone thinks about paint.

Paper and grit

Start coarse enough to level it. Stop fine enough to shine it.

Sandpaper is the cheapest thing in this guide, and people still argue about it more than anything else. Tandy’s edge-finishing tutorial, by Abby Tamez, starts with two numbers. “Use 80-grit sandpaper for rough sanding,” it says, then 120 grit for fine sanding. That’s a leveling sequence, built for edges that need real material taken off.

The forum runs finer. In a leatherworker.net thread on sanding leather edges, Hildebrand goes 220, then 400, then water. chiefjason goes from 220 straight to 2000 and a light water burnish. On thin wallet leather, a separate thread on sandpaper grit for wallet edges has Tramps Leatherworking at 600 grit and thekid77 at 1000. The Tanner Bates post on maker techniques for edges, by Rick Burns-Howell, describes taking a raw billfold edge through finer and finer emery cloth down to 1200 grit before burnishing with canvas.

Those numbers don’t conflict. They answer different edges. Thick, glued, uneven work wants a coarse start. A single clean layer that only needs polishing can start where the others finish.

This site’s own post, Patina Is a Record, Not a Flaw, says split or frayed edges on an old bag should be beveled back to sound leather and “lightly sanded to 320–400 grit” before burnishing.

Buy a mixed pack. Coarse, medium, fine, and a couple of sheets of something very fine. One warning from NavyVet in the wallet thread: sanding changes the piece’s dimensions, and coarser grit takes more off. On a strap that has to fit a buckle, that’s not a small thing.

Sticks, blocks and fingers

What’s behind the paper decides the shape of the edge.

Macro of a rough glued leather edge next to an edge sanded flush and square.

Paper alone is floppy. Something has to back it, and the backing is where the buying choice gets real.

The simplest store-bought answer is a sanding stick. Tandy’s Craftool sanding sticks come two to a pack, 7 inches long and just under an inch wide, and the listing calls them “almost like an emery board for leather.” It recommends them between coats of edge paint, and for roughing up thin leather so glue bites. The listing gives no grit number. Fine for touch-ups. Not a sequence.

A flat block is the other answer. Wrap a sheet around a piece of hardwood or a store-bought sanding block, and the idea is that the flat face keeps the edge square while you work. Tandy’s tutorial gives the rule that goes with it, in its own words: “Always angle your sanding stick or sandpaper away from the face of your project.” The tutorial’s reason is that sanding into the face changes the dimensions of the piece.

Fingers are free, and a finger behind the paper rounds the edge. Sometimes that’s what you want, on a soft edge or a curve. Usually it isn’t.

My opinion: buy a flat block before you buy anything with a motor. A block in one hand and a strap in a pony teaches you what a square edge feels like under your thumb, and nothing else teaches that.

Squid61’s line in the sanding thread is worth taping to the bench: “sand in one direction only.” I’d take that on faith before learning it the hard way.

Belt sanders and drums

A motor saves the forearm. It also takes leather off faster than you can stop it.

The powered option is old, not new. Bob Park’s method, published by Rocky Mountain Leather Supply as the Bob Park method of burnishing and edge finishing, starts with a stationary belt sander and a 150 or 220 grit belt, sanding against the direction of travel until all the layers are even and square and any leftover glue or finish is gone. For smaller work, his page mentions small sanding drums on a drill motor.

The forum backs it up for big pieces. In the sanding thread, a member who goes by Handstitched runs case edges on a bench sander until they’re even all around, then bevels, dyes and burnishes. NavyVet, in the wallet thread, describes a polyurethane-coated dowel on a drill for shaping and a fine edge grinding wheel for large pieces.

The risk is the same one every motor brings. Bob Park’s page cautions that friction makes heat you can feel, and that over-burnishing leaves a rough edge. My worry is simpler. A belt doesn’t get tired, so it never warns you.

My opinion: a belt sander earns its bench space on a briefcase gusset, a long flap, or anywhere glued layers have to come flush across a long run. On a card wallet it’s a chainsaw for a toothpick. Learn the block first.

Sand first, or bevel first?

Two good shops, two orders. And one man who doesn’t sand at all.

A briefcase flap with a smooth burnished edge after sanding, next to canvas and a sanding stick.

This is the fight in the comments of every edge tutorial. Tandy says trim, sand, then bevel, then burnish. Sailrite says the same, and adds that you bevel only once the edges are flush and square. Tanner Bates goes the other way: bevel to knock the corner off, then sand coarse to fine, then burnish.

Here’s how I’ve done it on my own work. When I fuse two pieces of leather into a lining, I sand the edge, then bevel it, then burnish. Sand-then-bevel makes sense to me on glued layers, because you can’t cut an even bevel on an edge where one layer sticks out past the other. My opinion: on a single layer that was cut clean, the order matters a lot less than the people arguing about it.

Now the honest part. Everything above assumes sanding comes before burnishing, and on a lot of my briefcases that’s not where the sandpaper does its real work. On lined or suede-lined cases I don’t burnish. I use a latex-based edge paint, because it glues the layers while it covers them, and it goes on in many coats with the bumps ironed out between them. Tandy’s tutorial says the same about paint, that sanding sticks belong between coats. So the title of this post is true for a burnished edge and only half true for a painted one, where sanding is the thing you do over and over, between every coat, until you stop.

And one forum member skips it entirely. Hardrada, in the sanding thread, doesn’t sand at all: “I glass them instead with a skiving knife: no mushrooming this way.” A sharp blade scraped along the edge leaves it flat without the dust. He gets the edge flat with a blade instead of grit. That’s a skill, not a shortcut, and it’s a reminder that sandpaper is one way to get flat, not the only one.

What to buy, in order

A pack of paper, a block, a stick. The motor can wait.

For a beginner, the buying list is short: a mixed pack of sandpaper or emery cloth from coarse to very fine, a flat block or a scrap of hardwood to wrap it around, and a sanding stick for small curves and the gaps between paint coats. A good beveler, which the post on beveling and creasing a leather strap covers. Add canvas and a burnishing agent, gum tragacanth or beeswax, and the edge is ready for the steps in hand burnishing edges on vegetable-tanned leather.

If the work moves up to cases with long glued edges, then think about a belt sander, and set it up with a fine belt.

My Leather Choices page recommends keeping a thick Hermann Oak case “traditional by burnishing, not painting.” That’s my bias, and it’s why I care about the sanding at all. My opinion: paint forgives a little. A burnished edge forgives nothing, and it shows a skipped sanding job in raking light the first time somebody picks the case up.

Wet Dry Sandpaper Assortment, 45 Pieces: A 45-piece wet and dry sandpaper assortment that starts at 400 grit. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

3Pcs Wooden Sandpaper Block Set: A three-piece wooden sanding block set with bevel and wedge shapes. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Fiebing’s Gum Tragacanth, 4 oz: A 4 oz bottle of gum tragacanth, a burnishing aid for leather edges. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Beesworks Yellow Beeswax Bars, 6 oz: Yellow beeswax bars, 6 oz, for waxing thread. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Fiebing’s Edge Kote, 4 oz: A 4 oz edge coating for finishing leather edges. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A commission may be earned if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you.

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