It’s just a bit of fun. Ron Farber-Newman wasn’t trying to fool anyone with the result, he just wanted to see what could be done.
Impressively, this was actually Farber-Newman’s first ever leather project!
He did the hole-punching for the stitching by hand, but used the laser cutter to create a guide.
My primary hobby is laser cutting. I’ve wanted to find a leather-working project where I could use my laser cutter to cut precise leather parts for awhile now. When Apple released the AirTag, and subsequently, Hermès released their $449 leather AirTag key ring, I couldn’t help but find myself inspired to try my hand at making a knock-off version for a fraction of the price by developing a template, which I’m providing here for free!
The project took maybe 8-10 hours, from design to final assembly. Consumable material costs for one AirTag case is probably only $5-10. All in, with tools and supplies I can use on future projects, I probably spent around $100.
You can find all the details, including a link to the template, at his website Farbulous Creations – as well as watch the project video below.
I wanted a reference for myself for where to punch, so I created a dotted line with gap spacing to match the gap of the prongs on the leather stitching chisels I had ordered, which was 3 millimeters. I etched these dots very lightly before cutting the parts out […]
As for the primary cut settings, on my 80W laser, I used 15 millimeters per second at 10% power, with 2 passes. Those were the settings I found that cut through the leather nicely without overly scorching it […]
One thing I noticed about the real Hermès AirTag case from the product images on Apple’s site was that it appeared to have a nice rounded-over edge, so I wanted to do this on my case too. I used a leather chamfering tool to take off the hard corner of all my pieces.
If you’re not quite up to making your own AirTag accessories, check out our roundup of the best AirTag keychains, cases, and straps.
