after watching this video I come back and watched again, what I'm trying to say is i watched many others and found your the most helpful, this video is good as gold for the beginners, again, THANX
l use two pieces of self adhesive vinyl floor tile and stick them together. They work very well for pricking and for punching. Also are different sizes and are quite cheap to replace, but they last a long time, just make sure to get the flexible vinyl tiles.
Thanks Leathertoolz! We really need to step up our stitching iron game. We've been getting by with Tandy's basic irons, as well as their pro irons. Those pro irons are the ones that need to be ground on the interior of the tines. Takes a long time...
Nigel from Armitage Leather has a video review series of all of these irons. Defo worth checking out. We haven't seen in person or used the Craft Sha's or the Kyoshin Elle (we are a pro shop, but have limited resources), but our impression is that the Tandy Pros are a higher quality tool. BUT the Tandy Pro's require a lot of work on the interior tines before they are useful. There are horizontal machining lines as well as a rough finish on the steel, it makes it very difficult to draw the iron out of the leather. Once sanded and polished, they are very useful. The irons are a little small, they have thin rectangular shafts (which is good in that it allows the irons to fit into tighter spaces), but because they are shorter and thinner than lower quality irons (which usually have round, knurled shafts), they are a little more difficult to withdraw from the leather. We may modify the shafts of these Tandy Pros to make them easier to grip. All the best, we really appreciate your channel.
I wish you had used the same thread. I can't tell how much of the difference is due to the use of the awl vs. the thinner thread. I imagine they are both causes of the superior look.
Hi , I want to tell you that , you very huntsman and very kind heart 💓 too , why because you give your expensive experience to everyone with explant and make it easy to understand the information especially I am beginner to learn about leathers, because also I want to encourage my young son to learn it too. And maybe I will ask my daughter to buying me the Tools from Japan. now she is working as Silver designer, God blessing you and yr families too . Please can you tell me what’s yr name. I am living in London for many years. I am Original Egyptian. Please if you have any advice for me I be happy to know. God will looks after you because you kind 💓💐👏🏻
Stiching very good I can see you must have done a lot ,and I'm glad to see the ritza 25 some call it Tigre thread ,you use is the best thread I use a lot of the 1mm thread
Hello Mr. Clark. your comment always gives me smile. Thank you for kind words. Yeah I do think Ritza 25 is really the BEST thread for handing stitching.
Thanks for the nice little tutorial. Now, Iemme ask, why did you use a flat/oblique awl (french type) for awling, instead of a diamond shaped (japanese) awl? Shouldn't one use flat awls only with pricking irons (french style)? Oh, and a bonus question: where did you get this leather? It has a nice bright color and texture. Thanks!
Hi there, I have a lot of trouble pulling threads through the holes because of the needle butts + the thread of which a smaller diameter hole makes it really hard to pull through and a larger hole would make it look not neat and nice, do you have any advice on this? Thanks
I use my granite slab together with a soft foam (underneath). Do agree with tools on a budget, but eventually if one is doing for a long time, like years, quality tools will always find its way into workspaces :)
Hello,Toby! good to see your comment! keep buying new cheap tools or using good tools over and over. Both have good and bad. : ) Using soft foams underneath the granite slab? why? to reduce noise?
i have a problem when iam using it, i hummer the chisel hard, until it make a big hole hole, but the chisel take big effort to take it off the leather, so i need to twist as you mentioned, then damage the hole, and the stitching condition before awful , how could i avoid it?
Also I really hate tiger thread (I have 0.8mm), because the over saturated wax makes it even harder to pull the threads through because the wax would create more friction. I don’t understand how people like this thread so much (I find the mesi threads without the wax much better because there is little to no friction), am I doing something wrong?
You have great videos! I watch them all the way through for all the good information even though your camera is very distracting with the focus problems. Please, please, please get a decent camera with better auto focus. :)
I’ve heard of that too, and I’m pretty sure it works. I think it also helps when you’re stitching the leather, because if there is wax in the hole, the thread stays in better.
But if you don't go all the way through, how does the leather on the other side get those slanted holes? Only the top would get slanted holes, and the bottom/opposite side would just get punched holes from the awl. What am I missing?
@@asdfqwerty271 if you use "star" shaped awl into that hole, the other end will have a "circular" hole. leather doesn't carve out its hold shape. leather moves around the object to follow the shape of it. if you use diamond awl, it will have slanted hole in the shape of diamond. just try your thoughts into practice. you will get clear understanding
Mick Norris, I'm interested to know what you recommend for a light souce, I've been learning some stitching and stamping and find the shadow from hands gets in the way and can't see very well what I'm doing, could be a subject for another video. Keep up your tutorials, I'm sure many of us beginners are getting much value from them..
9:20 You mention the sharp edge along the sides of the pricking iron. If you don't intend to use it as a punch-through 'diamond chisel' why don't you just take those side edges down with a file/sand-paper/water stone? I'm guessing they don't really need to be sharp, since it's really only the tips of the teeth that are doing any cutting. Now I'm getting beyond my depth, but I can't help but think that if if these were punched all the way through, the side-edges don't have to be sharp much above the tips of the teeth. Again, I'm only guessing here but it may even be better if the side edges aren't sharp - they would still widen to hole (to be hammered closed again later) but the side edges seem as though they may over-cut the diamond-holes if they were left sharp, especially if there's any rocking/difficulty getting the chisel out of the leather.
@@charlibravo371 I actually ended up doing this on my own set of diamond chisels with a Dremel tool, various shapes of buffing attachments, and green honing compound: the holes definitely came out neater in leather. This was still after I sharpened the tips of the diamond chisels as described in this video. I had also emailed English Leatherworker Nigel Armitage to get his perspective: he recommended softening the edges above the chisel tips as well. Hope this helps!!
Your videos are great. I like your content and passion. Do you offer any condensed videos? I noticed it took 4 mins to tell people to use a cutting board or soft surface to not damage their iron. I imagine you could trim portions of the vid down. Otherwise, great job and thanks!
I appreciate your effort in this video but you started the video as if you would like to show the difference between going all the way down with the pricking iron vs pricking and finishing with awl. In the end you used different threads for different stitching holes and you showed us two fine stitches. I think you got confused a little bit :D And what as the point of cutting the leather in two pieces before stitching :D Anyway still I appreciate your effort to produce content and serve us for free.
The Japanese pricking irons are the best. The Tandy irons are not good at all. If you can only afford one Seiwa iron or a set of four from Tandy then get the single Seiwa and save up for the next one lol. Don’t buy the Tandy irons. They’re rough and cheaply made and just aren’t made very well. Also, there are a lot of places to get tools and materials besides Tandy. You just have to look around. Thank goodness for the Internet lol
