Groover tool choice, interchangable tips?

[bruce johnson]

5 hours ago, Aventurine said:

Yes, the reason I'd get it would be to recess the stitches in shoe soles, no other use.   I wouldn't groove leather and weaken it just to mark it.  (People do that???)

You can groove really deep on shoe soles to recess that stitching. Many makers use a channeler though. 

[bruce johnson]

5 hours ago, TomE said:

I agree with @zuludog.  I rarely use a stitch groover and usually mark my stitch lines with dividers or a crease, whether sewing by hand or machine.  I don't like the idea of cutting the grain of the leather.  Maybe for some projects (shoes?) it's important to recess the thread, but I rarely see the thread fail in horse tack.  It's usually the leather wrapping around hardware that breaks.  An exception is old linen thread that has rotted.  I'd be interested in learning from others why they groove their stitch lines.

I grooved my stitchlines for several reasons. One is that I started off handsewing and grooving front and back gave me a target to keep my stitchlines straight. Good for practice and devloping the muscle memory and consistent angles for hand stitching. 

I groove to the depth of the thread. I don't need to dig a ditch to recess #92 and a dent in leather isn't going to recess #415. I hear the weakening argument a lot. OK, for most leather the rules say stitchlines parallel with lines of tension and not across. Take that little thread of leather you grooved off. Pull it apart between your fingers and see just how much tensile strength there is in it. 

On machine sewing. I sit right there and with a "soft-eye" watch the length of the needle line up with the groove line. It helps with that target line to keep stitching straight. . If the axis of the needle is lined up over the stitchline down the road, my needle is going in the right spot. I don't need to hard-eye look at the needle point everytime it punches in. Number one, that is fatiguing. Number two the stitchline wanders. Pick a point further down the road, lineup on it, and let that focal point float on ahead. Like driving a car down the highway.   

[MarshalWill]

I have the same groover you showed. It's easy to use and does the job well. My only objection is that the smallest groove is bigger than I sometimes want so I have to resort to an old one I have on hand that I don't like as much but does the job.

[Aventurine]

Thank you, MarshalWill.