Hidepounder Tools

[TomE]

6 hours ago, Ben00 said:

Hi, Tom t

thank you for the tip, when u say burnishing Orin I assume you mean the electric ones online? As they don’t seem to look like the one in the video. Although this looks like exactly what I need, please elaborate thank you. 
 

BN

The burnishing iron/edge iron is heated in a flame - alcohol lamp or propane burner - or on an induction hot plate if you have a ferrous metal tool.  Similar to heating a creasing iron.  Beeswax is softened and spread on the edge then the warm burnishing iron is used to work the wax into the leather.  Hard to find the old burnishing irons.  I ordered the brass "lollipop burnisher" from Duane Watts on Etsy and am waiting to try it out.  I learned about this method from an article by Cary Schwarz in the May 2022 Shop Talk magazine (I think it's Cary in the video I posted).  Cary says he learned about it during a visit to sellier Jean Luc Parisot. 

[Ben00]

Thank you Tom 

I noticed in that video the edge is quite wide obviously since your burnishing a saddle I looks like. But my leather is only a few ounces do you know if the burnishing iron does all edge thicknesses even if the leather is a bit flimsy or will it end up looking kind of messy? Thanks 

[TomE]

I think a burnishing iron is too big for your work. The lollipop has a 1/2 inch wide U-shaped groove. I’m planning to use it on tack made with 1-3 layers of 8-10 oz leather. I don’t know anything about the electric heated burnishers but think they are for light weight projects. 

[bruce johnson]

The old Dixon irons with the olive shape had a different groove on each side. I did some 5 oz edges with the smaller side that worked well. They were OK for bigger stuff up to about 12 oz. but once I sold them out - hard to find in the US. The advantage of the edge iron that Cary had made was having four faces each with a different sized groove to suit a particular thickness. Once his machinist stopped making them and no longer available  I repurposed some copper head soldering irons. I started by cleaning them up and then working different grooves and they worked well too. The heads have a lot of heat mass and hold a good temperature. 

[chuck123wapati]

11 hours ago, bruce johnson said:

The old Dixon irons with the olive shape had a different groove on each side. I did some 5 oz edges with the smaller side that worked well. They were OK for bigger stuff up to about 12 oz. but once I sold them out - hard to find in the US. The advantage of the edge iron that Cary had made was having four faces each with a different sized groove to suit a particular thickness. Once his machinist stopped making them and no longer available  I repurposed some copper head soldering irons. I started by cleaning them up and then working different grooves and they worked well too. The heads have a lot of heat mass and hold a good temperature. 

that's what i was thinking, get an old iron and a couple of files wouldn't take an hour to make.