Keeping Punches Sharp

[Nutty Saddler]

How do you keep your hole punches / crew punches / chisels from getting blunt .

I have seen in some of the photo's of other people working that they have wood or plastic underneath their leather when they are punching holes ? does this not blunt the tools over time , I know that the tools can be sharpened but this can easily lead to deformed tools if sharpened incorrectly .

I was told to use a lead block under my leather ( see pic ) - this enables me to punch holes / points / crew without blunting my tools - in fact some of my tools have been used in this manner for 18 years and have never needed to be sharpened . The lead block that I have is about 8 " diameter and about 1" thick - this gives me a really heavy / stable base with which to make holes / points with - the lead block does need to be flattened with a hammer on a regular basis so as not to leave marks on the underside of the leather and sometimes a sheet of paper is used if I need to keep the leather especially clean.

Just a little tip from the saddlery trade that I thought I'd share with you all.

[jeeperaz]

How do you keep your hole punches / crew punches / chisels from getting blunt .

I have seen in some of the photo's of other people working that they have wood or plastic underneath their leather when they are punching holes ? does this not blunt the tools over time , I know that the tools can be sharpened but this can easily lead to deformed tools if sharpened incorrectly .

I was told to use a lead block under my leather ( see pic ) - this enables me to punch holes / points / crew without blunting my tools - in fact some of my tools have been used in this manner for 18 years and have never needed to be sharpened . The lead block that I have is about 8 " diameter and about 1" thick - this gives me a really heavy / stable base with which to make holes / points with - the lead block does need to be flattened with a hammer on a regular basis so as not to leave marks on the underside of the leather and sometimes a sheet of paper is used if I need to keep the leather especially clean.

Just a little tip from the saddlery trade that I thought I'd share with you all.

Thanks for the tip! I've been looking recently for a plastic type cutting board to use to punch on.... I'll switch gears and start looking for some lead.

[Dwight]

I have a high density polyethylene cutting surface on my work bench, . . . 1/4 in thick, . . . $40 out the door and it is great.

I punch on it, . . . cut on it, . . . no problems with my tools.

It is not perfectly self healing, . . . but it comes fairly close.

May God bless,

Dwight

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

The trick with a wood surface is to use the end grain, not cross grain. You can use a stump, a slice from a log, or laminate a bunch of chunks together. The punch has a far easier time separating the wood fibers than trying to sever them.

[TwinOaks]

I just use a rubberized "poundo" mat I got from Tandy. I use it under my stamping stone as well to dampen the sound. Never any problems with a rubber mat dulling a tool. I don't have to worry about handling a lot of lead with it either.

To help keep them sharp, chuck them up in a drill and slowly 'turn' them against your strop.

[gtwister09]

In my talks with several older saddlemakers, I have seen many of them have a decent stump that has a hollowed out center (some have a large piece of wood instead). The center section generally leaves about 2 inches around the outside as a border and they say that the depth of cutout is between 1 and 2 inches. They have filled that center section with lead. A couple of them beat it into there but almost all of them say that they heat it up every so often to smooth things out. You can certainly tell with some of them because the stump/wood shows signs of a little flame...

One of the guys inherited his lead punching block almost 60 years ago and said that he had a picture of the saddlemaker he got it from that was dated 1912 and that the stump was in the background. Like Nutty Saddler many of them haven't sharpened their punches in a long time.

A word of caution about lead in bags and punching blocks. One of these saddlemakers had one of his great grandchildren test high for lead and it was found out that his shop was the source. Of course in this case it was the child messing with his lead shot tooling bags but he had his table and some other things tested and several things came up high (not as high as his shot bags but high enough to be marked as contaminated). He had his bench and some tools cleaned professional. They advised him to replace his bags and get rid of the punch block. He said that he didn't really want to get rid of the block so they suggested when using it to cover with paper and throw the paper away every time and to spray it with a polyurethane every so often. He has since replaced his bags with steel shot bags. If he uses the lead shot stump much he hits it with some cheap polyurethane to reduce lead dust to a bare minimum as well as using paper under the leather as well.

On a side note he had them test several leather pieces (different tooling leathers, latigo - chrome and retan and some chap leather). The different types tested was to see if a certain leather/chemical mix would yield different results. He punched several holes in each of them and had them run lead tests and they all came up negative. This was the test that they did in order for him to keep the lead punching stump.

Regards,

Ben