Diamond awl only for shaping?

[DwightT]

Recently I bought a new diamond stitching awl off of Amazon because I wanted something that could do smaller holes than what my current awl provides.  The awl arrived, and the blade promptly broke off at the shank after poking about 5 holes.  I contacted the seller, and while they refunded the purchase price, they also told me "We immediately reported the situation to our professional craftsman, who advised our customers not to directly use the awl to punch holes. Since the tip of the awl is relatively sharp, it can only be used to assist in poking holes. After the hole is made, use an awl to reshape the hole."

Does any of that make sense to anybody?  Are they saying that I should be using something else to poke the hole and their awl is only meant to be used to shape an existing hole?  That seems like a fairly cumbersome way to do stitching, but maybe that's what needed for smaller fine-detail stitching?  Am I missing something?

Meanwhile I went back to my old awl, which is still holding up fine.  I may not have thousands of projects under my belt with that awl, but I have poked a few hundred holes with it.

    /dwight

[sbrownn]

Doesn't make sense to me. 

Hand stitching is slow enough as it is, I'm not going to poke the hole twice.

[Gezzer]

My bs meter just pegged out !!!!

[chuck123wapati]

8 minutes ago, Gezzer said:

My bs meter just pegged out !!!!

 we call it throwing the bs flag.

 

[tsunkasapa]

Total BullSnot. A crappy excuse for a crappy tool.

[fredk]

all of the above

[TomE]

You reminded me that the only expensive awl I own is a piece of junk sitting in a drawer.  It came from a reputable vendor and has their logo on the brass ferrule.  It is a small awl with a lovely haft that the awl wiggles around in and feels like it's going to break off.  I can't get it sharp and think the awl is crap.  Some day I'll get motivated to swap it for an Osborne harness awl.

[battlemunky]

Agreed...at least you got your money back...

[doubleh]

Weasel words to keep from admitting they are selling junk. I have been using the same awl from back in the early seventies with one blade change over the years to punch holes and I have punched thru 4 layers of 8-9 oz. veg tan leather with it. Now in my dotage I drill the really thick things with a 1/16" drill bit before using the awl which reduces the effort a lot.

[Doc Reaper]

Y’all need to start naming the ones selling junk so those that look up to you won’t buy the same crap you purchased, that runs the garbage makers out of business 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Doc Reaper
Spelling error

[dikman]

Is it advertised as a stitching awl? If so you were using it for the advertised purpose (which it obviously isn't fit for). Sounds to me like it's only fit to use as a scratch awl.

Referring it to their "professional craftsman" made me laugh. Weasel words indeed, they're trying to make it sound like they know what they're talking about.

[DwightT]

I'm glad it wasn't just me that found their comment strange.  I know I'm no expert at stitching, and I thought maybe there was a technique that I didn't know about.  That's why I didn't want to name them and malign their name over my stupidity (always a good possibility).  But since I'm not alone in doubting their words, this was the "WUTA Stitching Awl Diamond Shape Awl" from WUTA Leather.  I see now on their description on Amazon that they have this statement:

"Use correctly:In order for you to use the awl better, When perforating, you need to use a hole punch tool to perforate first. The awl only used to assist the perforation. "

Still makes absolutely no sense to me.

    /dwight

[MikeRock]

Are these the guys?   I wonder how real the Ebony is??

 

[DwightT]

Yep. That's them. I bought the small one. I will say that when it was nice and sharp when it arrived and only needed a quick polishing, any the holes it made were nicely shaped and small. I guess the only real problem was that the blade was so brittle that it snapped after only a few holes.

    /dwight

[sbrownn]

13 hours ago, DwightT said:

Yep. That's them. I bought the small one. I will say that when it was nice and sharp when it arrived and only needed a quick polishing, any the holes it made were nicely shaped and small. I guess the only real problem was that the blade was so brittle that it snapped after only a few holes.

    /dwight

I guess at least you now have a nice handle to put a "real" awl in?

[DwightT]

I could, but while the handle is OK, it's actually a bit smaller in my hand than I would prefer.  I have an Owden awl with interchangeable blades, but they are a bit larger than what I was looking for.  I'll probably just keep looking for a decent small diamond-shape awl.

    /dwight