Total n00b questions but, frankly, which is better? Punches or those Diamond Tips?
From what I can see there are 3 options for stitching leather:
Pricking Irons which put stitch marks on the leather that you push through with a sewing awl,
Diamond Tip chissels that put small holes in the leather but you still need a bit of force to get needles through to sew and
Round Punches which put neat holes in the leather.
Other than this, all I know are sewing machines which are expensive, advanced and for a time in my future.
I'm only starting out but I've tried both Round Punches and Diamond Tips for making some crappy 'learner' bags. Both were on multi-punch arrangments (2 and 5 puches mostly), both were 5mm separation and both seemed to do the thing well. Frankly, I'm trying to work out the difference between them.
All I can see is the round punches leave neat holes while the diamond tips are a bit tighter on holding the leather. I think I prefer the diamond tips but just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something. The ones I was using were crappy, ebay ones but they proved the point.
I rejected French Tips/Pricking Irons because I am doing some leather sewing while in other contexts - i.e. teaching at High School - and, franky, 2 needles and some thread through pre-punched hols are much more discrete than trying to force an Awl through tough leather.
Is this just a personal preference question or is there a genuine purpose for these I'm missing?