bluepenguin

Thanks y'all! I will definitely look into the Bob Douglas tools. The sharpness factor probably has a lot to do with my issue, actually; I sharpened the blades I was using and thought, oh good, they're sharp now, but I examined them more closely after I read your posts and realized they could use a lot more elbow grease. Thank you so much for the pointers!

Hey everyone! I'm fairly new to leatherwork, and I'm getting to be proficient with tooling, dyeing, etc, but when it comes to actually constructing anything, I'm lost. So I picked up a bunch of Al Stohlman's books, and I've been doing a lot of reading and practicing. My problem, though, is this. When I'm using a stitching awl, after I've gouged a sewing channel and all that, it takes a major effort to get the awl blade to go through the leather. As in, I can't make it happen. Obviously I must be missing something, but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.