Rawhide Appliqué Help

[c2369zulu]

Hello all!

 

I am getting interested in trying a little rawhide appliqué. I have made a couple of kangaroo hide bullwhips before, so I have the tools to cut lace, resize it and bevel it. I also have the Grant rawhide Encyclopedia. I am more interested in how holes are punched and their spacing. What tools are used? The book does not really cover those topics well. They do not tell you to use a lacing chisel, stitching chisel or hole punch necessarily. I have done some testing with a lacing hole punch and it does ok, but it appears some applications should use slits/slots. Most examples of appliqué I have seen online do not seem to use lacing chisels or stitching chisels and the rawhide lace is cut pretty thin. I watch a couple of guys on Instagram and tik-Tok doing some nice work. I have reached out to them but have not heard back yet. Any experienced appliqué folks out there? Thanks…Rory

[Rockydb]

I use a stitch awl, not to be confused with a sewing awl. I also use scratch awl for opening the holes up on second pass through the hole.