Newbie Question On Stitching Groover

[chammara]

Hi All,

I am a new member and new to leather working. I wanted to make something for my daughter that she would cherish and decided to make a small book case, basically two pieces of leather with a flexible spine. I bought some tooling leather and a stitching awl, edge beveller and a stitching groover. My question is regarding the groover. It has adjustable blade with a square cross section and a sharp beveled edge. I have seen some videos where people seem to take of a nice long string of leather with their groover. With the bevel down, all I can manage is badly scratch the surface. When the bevel is up, I can get a pretty clean depression if I press hard.

My question is, do groovers work differently? What is the recommended way to use it? Is getting a channel by pressing down leather the right way? My blade is almost 1/8th inch in width. Is that too wide?

Sorry for the stupid newbie question. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the answer even after six hours of looking around.

Thanks!,

chaammara

Edited April 4, 2011 by chammara

[bison]

The groover has a small hole, with a "nib" sticking up. That is the side you place against the leather and pull towards you. You'll get the long strip of leather you've seen others getting. If you have the Tandy deluxe groover, perhaps you don't have the groover blade in, but are using the creaser. If you have the regular groover, you may need to lay the blade at a lower angle to the leather. Hope this helps.

[pete]

Hi All,

I am a new member and new to leather working. I wanted to make something for my daughter that she would cherish and decided to make a small book case, basically two pieces of leather with a flexible spine. I bought some tooling leather and a stitching awl, edge beveller and a stitching groover. My question is regarding the groover. It has adjustable blade with a square cross section and a sharp beveled edge. I have seen some videos where people seem to take of a nice long string of leather with their groover. With the bevel down, all I can manage is badly scratch the surface. When the bevel is up, I can get a pretty clean depression if I press hard.

My question is, do groovers work differently? What is the recommended way to use it? Is getting a channel by pressing down leather the right way? My blade is almost 1/8th inch in width. Is that too wide?

Sorry for the stupid newbie question. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the answer even after six hours of looking around.

Thanks!,

chaammara

PLEASE post a picture of the groover on a piece of leather the way that you are trying to use it.

[Ladykahu]

New groovers also come with a layer of waxy stuff on them. Make sure you peel this off or they don't work look carefully for any inside the little hole, its easy to miss a bit

Natalie

[chammara]

Thanks for the replies and sorry for my late response!

There is no waxy stuff anywhere! I have polished everything up on a stone and stropped it to see if it helps.

I have attached a photo (sorry for the awful image, don't have a real camera handy). There is a small hole indeed and I wondered what it was for. I am guessing this is just for creasing then. Do I need buy these "nibs" and insert them if I want to take off a small thread of leather? Or, is the blade with the nib an entirely different thingy?

Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

(edit: I am having some issues uploading the photo; trying again)

Edited April 7, 2011 by chammara

[bison]

It's hard to tell from the photo, but it looks like you polished off the cutting edge. The stitch groover (the part that does the cutting) is placed, hole and nib down, on the leather and pulled toward you while holding the center post (coming out of the wooden handle) against the edge of the leather. In the case of your photo, you would flip it over and use it. Like I said, it's hard to tell, but you might have polished off the cutting nib. If you have a Tandy store nearby, they will have replacement cutters and will be happy to demonstrate it for you. That's how I learned.

Good luck.

Dave

[chammara]

It's hard to tell from the photo, but it looks like you polished off the cutting edge. The stitch groover (the part that does the cutting) is placed, hole and nib down, on the leather and pulled toward you while holding the center post (coming out of the wooden handle) against the edge of the leather. In the case of your photo, you would flip it over and use it. Like I said, it's hard to tell, but you might have polished off the cutting nib. If you have a Tandy store nearby, they will have replacement cutters and will be happy to demonstrate it for you. That's how I learned.

Good luck.

Dave

Dave,

Thanks for your helpful reply. I am quite sure there wasn't any nib to start with. The blade was just like a chisel, with a bevel and a hole. I attempted to sharpen and polish only after I failed to get the results expected. Does your blade end in a bevel?

I guess I will look around for a replacement cutter.

chammara

[Ladykahu]

This short youtube vid shows how to use on...

Natalie

[evandailey]

Dave,

Thanks for your helpful reply. I am quite sure there wasn't any nib to start with. The blade was just like a chisel, with a bevel and a hole. I attempted to sharpen and polish only after I failed to get the results expected. Does your blade end in a bevel?

I guess I will look around for a replacement cutter.

chammara

I don't know where you got your groover from but I got mine from Harbor Freight and it was exatly as you described. That cutter is totally ground wrong. It should be ground rounded on the end and tapered right up to the edge of the drilled hole. The sharp edge left by tapereing to the hole is your cutting edge. I had to regrind mine. The starting image of the video that got posted shows a good picture of what it should look like.

Edited April 8, 2011 by evandailey

[chammara]

I don't know where you got your groover from but I got mine from Harbor Freight and it was exatly as you described. That cutter is totally ground wrong. It should be ground rounded on the end and tapered right up to the edge of the drilled hole. The sharp edge left by tapereing to the hole is your cutting edge. I had to regrind mine. The starting image of the video that got posted shows a good picture of what it should look like.

Aha! this is it then. I bought mine at HF too. I will have to think about fixing it. Thanks very much for your help.

This short youtube vid shows how to use on...

Natalie

Hi Natalie,

The blade I have looks nothing like it. It turns out that the blade is not ground correctly at all! Thanks for the video link. I can probably regrind this blade to what it looks like in the video.

[gaRYW5]

I use the tandy pro stitching groover number 88081-00. I'll try to put up a pic.I like better than the other one cause I have better control with it.

[Jazznow]

Hope, you can regrind your groover. If not, go to a tandy store and take a look, if their replacement blades fit into yur groover. The ones from Tandy come ready to go out of the box usually

I found another Youtube vid, that shows, how to use a groover. Take a look.

Greetings,

Jonathan