Pricking Iron - Wide Teeth

[Toadflax]

After using an overstitch wheel for a number of years, I got myself an English pricking iron, No 6, but was surprised at how wide the teeth were on it – must be close on ¼". The marks it makes are noticeably wider than the awl so, once stitching is finished, the ends of the mark still show in the leather at the end of each stitch. As pointed out elsewhere, these could perhaps be polished out, but that is likely to alter the surface texture of that portion of the leather (and it adds another operation, which shouldn't really be required).

I've seen a few threads on this, and it seems that some irons have wide teeth, some have narrow and the only real option for this iron would be to grind it down to a narrower width if I want to avoid the marks.

So why are they made with such wide teeth?

Geoff

[UnionCraft]

After using an overstitch wheel for a number of years, I got myself an English pricking iron, No 6, but was surprised at how wide the teeth were on it – must be close on ¼". The marks it makes are noticeably wider than the awl so, once stitching is finished, the ends of the mark still show in the leather at the end of each stitch. As pointed out elsewhere, these could perhaps be polished out, but that is likely to alter the surface texture of that portion of the leather (and it adds another operation, which shouldn't really be required).

I've seen a few threads on this, and it seems that some irons have wide teeth, some have narrow and the only real option for this iron would be to grind it down to a narrower width if I want to avoid the marks.

So why are they made with such wide teeth?

Geoff

Hey, you and I were on the same boat. I ordered a 1' No. 6 Joseph Dixon iron and the length of each dent was 1/4" in in length. It' extremely ugly, but I noticed with softer types of leather, it isn't as bad. I decided to never purchase irons from JD after that and decided to go with what I always wanted to use... Vergez Blanchard. These irons have teeth that are about half the size of JD and you don't see ugly holes remaining after stitching. They're expensive, but worth the money in my opinion. Oh, and one more thing... I also purchased the smallest sized awl from them and it was the same size as the teeth; way too big!

[Jax]

Hi, I bought most of my pricking irons from Joseph Dixon over the years, I used to be able to call in to the factory, but always asked for the teeth to be made smaller which they always did for me at no extra cost. I found the guys that worked there were always very friendly, helpful and nothing was too much trouble, in my very humble opinion their saddlery tools are probably the best you can get in the U.K., even saying that the old tools are much better, alot to do with the metal they are made from I expect.