why does stitching done with my french irons look worse than my diamond irons?

[dans79]

I started out with round dents, but they are more niche than i originally thought so I ordered a set of diamond and French irons to try out.

The irons arrived Wednesday, and today was the first day i really had a chance to try them out. The diamond irons are 4mm spacing, and the French are 3.85mm

2 layers of 2.5oz glued together.

The thread from top to bottom is :

Vinymo MBT #8
Vinymo MBT #5
Vinymo MBT #1
0.6mm tiger thread
0.8mm tiger thread

French on the left, diamonds on the right

 I stitched ever line using the exact same technique (minus the one mistake), and for some reason the french  lines seem off to me. All the thread except the 0.8mm tiger thread doesn't seem to fill the holes right on the front. On the back side all the french lines look bad.

Am i doing something wrong, do I need use a special technique with french irons?

 

 

Front

 

 

Back

 

The holes before stitching.

[battlemunky]

I think you may be over-criticizing it. Other than the one hiccup in the red, I think they all look pretty close to perfect. Maybe on the back side you could do a cast to get it slanted as well but I'm seeing next to nothing wrong. Maybe another leathercrafter could find a problem if they looked long enough but the rest of the population isn't going to see anything out of place, especially if its on something that isn't flat or has other things to see.

[chuck123wapati]

26 minutes ago, battlemunky said:

I think you may be over-criticizing it. Other than the one hiccup in the red, I think they all look pretty close to perfect. Maybe on the back side you could do a cast to get it slanted as well but I'm seeing next to nothing wrong. Maybe another leathercrafter could find a problem if they looked long enough but the rest of the population isn't going to see anything out of place, especially if its on something that isn't flat or has other things to see.

[MtlBiker]

8 hours ago, dans79 said:

 I stitched ever line using the exact same technique (minus the one mistake), and for some reason the french  lines seem off to me. All the thread except the 0.8mm tiger thread doesn't seem to fill the holes right on the front. On the back side all the french lines look bad.

In what way do those lines seem "off" to you?  I think they look pretty darn good.  (I've just ordered a set of 4mm French (Euripean) style stitching chisels.)  Did you hammer down the stitch lines?  The back stitching looks a little, uh, boring, to me and I agree with @battlemunky that maybe adding a cast to the stitch would make it look better.

 

[chuck123wapati]

on the red you crossed one stitch everything else is perfect . I hate to tell you but you will be about the only person that ever examines every stitch of your work so if you think you need to do better than this to sell then your wasting a lot of time and worry.  Ask your self how many times you looked at the stitching on a product to the point your are doing now.

Get to enjoying the process of making stuff the human way you don't have to be perfect your not a machine. Lets see some projects!!!

[dans79]

2 hours ago, MtlBiker said:

In what way do those lines seem "off" to you?  I think they look pretty darn good.  (I've just ordered a set of 4mm French (Euripean) style stitching chisels.)  Did you hammer down the stitch lines?  The back stitching looks a little, uh, boring, to me and I agree with @battlemunky that maybe adding a cast to the stitch would make it look better.

Take a look at the full resolution photo of the back (right click open in a new window), and you will see that the thread is shifted up on all the french lines, but is centered on the diamond lines. The fronts look the same way to me, just not as extreme.

I was casting, but since I posted the photos, I think i might have had one step wrong, and the diamonds are just doing a better job of covering it up.  I need to glue up some more practice leather, But i will give it another go this afternoon when I work through what i think i was doing wrong. 

I think the thing that makes it hard to learn, is that none of the popular personalities showing how to stich, use the same terminology. 

Edited May 7, 2022 by dans79

[dans79]

35 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

Get to enjoying the process of making stuff the human way you don't have to be perfect your not a machine. Lets see some projects!!!

Lol, I generally do the exact opposite for everything. I learn everything I possibly can before I start doing something. My wifes says it's an annoying perfectionist trait.

[MtlBiker]

39 minutes ago, dans79 said:

Take a look at the full resolution photo of the back (right click open in a new window), and you will see that the thread is shifted up on all the french lines, but is centered on the diamond lines. The fronts look the same way to me, just not as extreme
I was casting, but since I posted the photos, I think i might have had one step wrong, and the diamonds are just doing a better job of covering it up.  I need to glue up some more practice leather, But i will give it another go this afternoon when I work through what i think i was doing wrong.
I think the thing that makes it hard to learn, is that none of the popular personalities showing how to stich, use the same terminology. 

Interesting.  I wonder if that's technique.  I have yet to try such stitching chisels and I'm impatiently waiting for my order of Sinabroks 4mm European style chisels.  I'm hoping they will help me elevate my stitching skills.  When I get mine, I'm going to do stitching tests using Ritza Tiger .6, .8 and 1.0 threads.  I suspect the 4mm chisels will be too closely spaced for the 1.0mm thread to look good.  I like how you've done your comparison test.

 

[mike02130]

 

4 hours ago, dans79 said:

Take a look at the full resolution photo of the back (right click open in a new window), and you will see that the thread is shifted up on all the french lines, but is centered on the diamond lines. The fronts look the same way to me, just not as extreme.

When you stitch, are you pulling one side up and away from you while pulling the other side down and towards yourself to tighten?  Looking at the back side, it looks like your stitches aren't seated properly.

[dans79]

7 minutes ago, mike02130 said:

When you stitch, are you pulling one side up and away from you while pulling the other side down and towards yourself to tighten?

Yea I'm doing that, i picked that part up from the Leodis Leather video on saddle stitching.

I'm working on some practice pieces right now, and i think I have my issue corrected. However the French irons definitely seem more sensitive than the diamonds to the angle and amount of force you use when tensioning the thread.

[Spyros]

1 minute ago, dans79 said:

However the French irons definitely seem more sensitive than the diamonds to the angle and amount of force you use when tensioning the thread.

yeah they are... the thread has a lot more distance to travel to reach the end of the hole, with the diamonds it bottoms out faster so it doesn't really matter how much you pull it.

[Klara]

You did not punch all the way through with the French irons, did you?  Because they are not meant for that...

[dans79]

2 hours ago, Klara said:

You did not punch all the way through with the French irons, did you?  Because they are not meant for that...

These aren't pricking irons, they are stitching irons. I checked with the manufacture before I purchased them, and was assured the will happily go through without issue. Using a punch pad of course! 

[dans79]

11 hours ago, MtlBiker said:

Interesting.  I wonder if that's technique.  I have yet to try such stitching chisels and I'm impatiently waiting for my order of Sinabroks 4mm European style chisels.  I'm hoping they will help me elevate my stitching skills.  When I get mine, I'm going to do stitching tests using Ritza Tiger .6, .8 and 1.0 threads.  I suspect the 4mm chisels will be too closely spaced for the 1.0mm thread to look good.  I like how you've done your comparison test.

 

Here you can see a comparison now that I'm doing the cast correctly, thought i still need to get a better handle on the appropriate amount of tension for both types of irons so the stitches look more consistent, but I'm much happier with the results.

2 layers of 2.5oz glued together.

The thread from top to bottom is :

1. 0.4 to 0.45mm Vinymo MBT #8
2. 0.6mm Vinymo MBT #5
3. 0.6mm tiger thread
4. 0.75mm Vinymo MBT #1
5. 0.8mm tiger thread

Personally I think the french irons look better on the front side up to Vinymo #1. For the diamonds i wouldn't go  larger than the 0.6mm tiger thread or Vinymo #5. 

On the back side the french are much better than what they where yesterday.  Are there any tricks to make the back side of the french look better (more centered vertically)? Or maybe a book with good information in it?

As an aside, one thing I've noticed is that the tiger thread is a little easier to work with imo. Every now and then the Vinymo will twist itself tighter for a stitch or two and throw of the look of the stich.  

Front

 

Back




 

Edited May 8, 2022 by dans79

[Spyros]

If you are doing any sort of significant stitching lengths then IMO these result are pretty much as good as it gets.

[Handstitched]

@dans79 If you want  it any more perfect than that, use a machine . But from what I can see, it looks great   

16 hours ago, chuck123wapati said:

Get to enjoying the process of making stuff the human way you don't have to be perfect your not a machine. Lets see some projects!!!

Hear hear !! I've lost count the amount of times my  hand stitching  has gone a bit off course on the back .  I call them ' humanity stitches' . Lets me know I am not a machine, or a robot . It also lets the customer  know that  its actually hand made . 

To keep (over) analysing  your work will only drive you crazy   

HS

[MtlBiker]

6 hours ago, dans79 said:

Here you can see a comparison now that I'm doing the cast correctly, thought i still need to get a better handle on the appropriate amount of tension for both types of irons so the stitches look more consistent, but I'm much happier with the results.

2 layers of 2.5oz glued together.

The thread from top to bottom is :

1. 0.4 to 0.45mm Vinymo MBT #8
2. 0.6mm Vinymo MBT #5
3. 0.6mm tiger thread
4. 0.75mm Vinymo MBT #1
5. 0.8mm tiger thread

Personally I think the french irons look better on the front side up to Vinymo #1. For the diamonds i wouldn't go  larger than the 0.6mm tiger thread or Vinymo #5. 

On the back side the french are much better than what they where yesterday.  Are there any tricks to make the back side of the french look better (more centered vertically)? Or maybe a book with good information in it?

As an aside, one thing I've noticed is that the tiger thread is a little easier to work with imo. Every now and then the Vinymo will twist itself tighter for a stitch or two and throw of the look of the stich.  

Front

 

Back




 

That's looking really good, and noticeably better than the first batch.  You've said that your French chisels are 3.85mm (I've ordered 4mm) but you never said what the regular chisel is (and size) for comparison.

And if I'm not mistaken, the Vinymo thread isn't waxed... are you waxing it?

[dans79]

1 minute ago, MtlBiker said:

That's looking really good, and noticeably better than the first batch.  You've said that your French chisels are 3.85mm (I've ordered 4mm) but you never said what the regular chisel is (and size) for comparison.

And if I'm not mistaken, the Vinymo thread isn't waxed... are you waxing it?

The regular/comparison chisels are 4mm diamonds from KemovanCraft.

I've tried it waxed, and unwaxed, and personally i don't really see a difference.