Why Ritza Thread?

[Mablung]

30 minutes ago, sparctek said:

Hopefully it helped some. I am still learning, and I still spend time practicing my stitching. I don't pierce the leather all the way through with pricking irons.So, I have to keep practicing with the diamond awl to make those neat straight lines on the back side. Learning to use the French stitching clam wast the hardest thing I've learned in leather work so far. LOL

Related to that, do pricking irons generally make narrower holes than stitching chisels? I have some of the regular Craftool black-coated stitching chisels, and the holes end up fairly fat in veg tan leather. I have some of the Craftool Pro ones with thinner tines but in too-narrow a stitch length for most of my stuff. Been thinking about getting pricking irons in order to make less obtrusive holes for firmer stitching. 

[SUP]

@Mablung, yes they do. They make fine, angled pricks on the leather. The final stitches look so beautiful,  but a lot of extra work, pricking each stitching hole before placing a stitch. I am lazy though. I try to make items where the stitching is not on display, use thread of exactly the same color as the leather and do simple straight stitching - no angles at all. Took a bit of practice to get that but it works for me. 

French pricking irons take too much work, . Imagine a backpack done that way! or something bigger!

I do practice  saddle stitching though, in case I decide to use its beauty. But I doubt I will use French pricking irons. No patience.

@sparctek, the French clam is a bit awkward to use, since it has to be positioned with ones own knees. I have an English style one, with a seat. One of the first things I bought. It's great. But people used to the French one swear by it. So to each his own, I suppose. What made you decide to get a French stitching clam?

[NatesLeatherGds]

20 hours ago, DieselTech said:

This is what the "S" looks like on your needle. Then from there you just slide your thread over the eye of the needle. From the pointed end.

 

Yes to the 'S'

[DieselTech]

Yeah I just decided I'm going to order a set of KS Blade v2 diamond pricking irons. Expensive, but I hear good things about them. The diamond is slimmer on them. 

[Mablung]

11 hours ago, DieselTech said:

Yeah I just decided I'm going to order a set of KS Blade v2 diamond pricking irons. Expensive, but I hear good things about them. The diamond is slimmer on them. 

Just looked those up, and the tines look very similar to those on the Craftool Pro stitching chisels.  The holes in the example picture look awfully nice.  I might experiment doing more with my chisels and using them like pricking irons.

Speaking of which, I did a knife sheath last night with a very thick welt at the top that I had to skive to a taper.  The only way to push through from the starter holes I had started in one side of the sheath was to use my awl, as my chisels would never get all the way through.  I polished my awl well and used it to stitch the whole sheath, for good measure.  Holy crap does the backside stitching ever look terrible--maintaining a proper angle with the awl is hard!

[SUP]

3 minutes ago, Mablung said:

Holy crap does the backside stitching ever look terrible--maintaining a proper angle with the awl is hard

LOL. Exactly. it requires a bit of practice to get the angle absolutely 90 degrees to the leather for each stitch. 

One way to avoid this, is to punch holes on both sides. For this you will need 2 sets of chisels - one angled in the opposite direction from the other.  Maintain the proper distance by starting with one point over the edge on the same edge on both sides. I'm not sure if I am explaining clearly. 

Incidentally, 

15 hours ago, SUP said:

I do practice  saddle stitching though

when I said this earlier, I meant angled stitching. Else it makes no sense.

[Mablung]

11 minutes ago, SUP said:

LOL. Exactly. it requires a bit of practice to get the angle absolutely 90 degrees to the leather for each stitch. 

One way to avoid this, is to punch holes on both sides. For this you will need 2 sets of chisels - one angled in the opposite direction from the other.  Maintain the proper distance by starting with one point over the edge on the same edge on both sides. I'm not sure if I am explaining clearly.

That does make sense.  I thought about doing that but had not gotten my welt properly proportioned, so I knew I would need to do a fair amount of trimming after I stitched everything together.  I also had to eyeball my chisel placement when doing the initial holes, so I knew it just wouldn't line up properly.  I'm not very good at spatial reasoning and my depth perception isn't very good (partly due to an ocular issue with one of my eyes), so I took my chances with the awl--and while it looks bad, it was probably easier to do it that way, lol.

[sparctek]

17 hours ago, Mablung said:

Related to that, do pricking irons generally make narrower holes than stitching chisels? I have some of the regular Craftool black-coated stitching chisels, and the holes end up fairly fat in veg tan leather. I have some of the Craftool Pro ones with thinner tines but in too-narrow a stitch length for most of my stuff. Been thinking about getting pricking irons in order to make less obtrusive holes for firmer stitching. 

Stitching chisels are meant to be punched all the way through the leather you are sewing and do leave a substantial hole in the leather. they are good for heavier leather and larger items. If you are making wallets or smaller items those may not be a good fit.

As for pricking irons, the traditional ones such as made by Blanchard are not intended to punch all the way through the leather. They are intended to mark or "prick" the leather to guide your awl. The teeth are usually set at an angle of ~45 degrees, give or take a couple. If done correctly the resulting stitching is very neat with a pleasing angle to the stitch.

Having said that, there are manufacturers such as Kevin Lee, Amy Roake and others making "modern" pricking irons that you can punch all the way through the leather, up to a certain thickness. Using these modern irons removes the need to use the awl on one stitch at a time.  With these, as long as you are careful to keep the iron straight up and down when punching through, you will have neat, straight stitching lines on the back.

I'm likely in the minority here, but I still like to do the traditional, one hole at a time with the stitching awl method. Granted I am a hobbyist. I'm sure if i was doing this for a living I would have to change that.

[SUP]

@sparctek I thought all pricking irons are like the traditional ones. If the ones by Kevin Lee and Amy Roake and other allow punching through the leather, that is one good reason to buy their instruments. I do not use leather thicker than 5-6 oz anyway so they should work for me. Usually I avoid expensive tools - seem to do perfectly well with more reasonably priced ones. I am a hobbyist too and I guess if I was doing this professionally, the tools would matter more.

When you say 'and others', who else, do you know?

54 minutes ago, sparctek said:

such as Kevin Lee, Amy Roake and others making "modern" pricking irons

@Mablung I learnt how to use the edge of the leather for punching holes on both sides from one of the patterns I bought online. Don't remember where. If I have to do it, I use an iron with round tines since I do not have opposite facing angled irons.

[tsunkasapa]

2 hours ago, Mablung said:

Holy crap does the backside stitching ever look terrible--maintaining a proper angle with the awl is hard!

Yes, that is important, but the geometry of your awl will affect that as well. If one (or more) of the 4 planes on your is off from the rest it will cause your awl to not want to travel straight through. I hope I explained that clearly, I don't do diagrams on a computer.

Edited February 22, 2024 by tsunkasapa
typo