brax71

Thanks all - I appreciate all of your recommendations. Today, I took the same piece of leather and tried to duplicate the problem -- I "think" those who said I was pulling too tight are probably correct. I tried every possible variation of how I might have struck the chisel; I thought i may have cut the fibers between holds when i was pulling the iron out. I could not get the problem to duplicate until I just went crazy folding the leather back and forth along the puch-line. I put the piece into my woodworking vise and still couldn't "ticket-tear" it by hand. Suspect I've narrowed it to the actual sewing process. Will re-stitch a similar piece either tonight or tomorrow to verify. Thank you all again for your input! Andy

First time trying to post pics, so please be kind if I've sized them wrong. I put 2 stitch back-stitch at the starting end (left on the picture and it turned out a bit ugly -- still learning). Appreciate the suggestion to post pics -- sadly, I wouldn't have thought of that Thanks, Andy

Greetings -- I'm a long time lurker, first time poster, new leatherworker... Had a frustrating thing happen today: my hand-stitches seem to have caused the leather I was sewing to rip along the stitch-line. I used an Osborn 700 stitching iron (I believe that iron has 1/16" prongs and 3/32" spacing) and plain-old waxed thread. Leather was 4 thicknesses of 3-4 oz veg-tan (trying to make a holster and used a flesh-to-flesh lamination for the front and one for the back). I punched my holes all the way through and saddle stitched... It really seems like the holes made "ticket" style perforations that simply tore across the joint. After my forensics on the joint, I found that some of my practice stitches in single layers of leather are exhibiting the same symptoms. How do I keep this from happening every time i try to sew a piece together? Aarrgghh, Andy