Faster Way To Make Stitching Holes?

[NewYorkerInSydney]

Hello good people,

I hand sew everything and really like the look of it vs machine sewing. However, the volume of my work is increasing and my hands are getting REALLY really tired of making every single hole by hand with an awl. I often punch through two glued layers of leather and thats even tougher to do. I have tried using a large number of diamond hole punches, chisel punches, you name it. Almost every kind of multiple hole punch tools and find that some of those holes too big for my liking especially when I sew through things like fine narrow watch straps. I know machine sewing would be the answer but I dont want to go there. Does anyone know of any other way to make the holes faster than one by one with an awl? I wondered a few times if using a sewing machine WITHOUT thread for the purpose of making holes, would work, but I dont have an industrial machine. Any ideas anyone? Id really appreciate it.

Regards,

NYIS

[TexasJack]

I do recall seeing a guy using a Tippman Boss to make the holes, then sewing a saddle stitch on a sheath.

[Jax]

Hi NYIS, if my memory serves me correctly when you hand stitch into machine made holes the stitches lie the opposite way to normal, we tryed all ways of making our stitching quicker neater etc when at college but I think many went back to the old way of making the holes with an awl as they go along, if you ever saw any of the factory stitchers in Walsall they stitch at a phenomenal speed, but they have to they are paid by how many items they stitch.

[NewYorkerInSydney]

Hi guys,

Thanks so much for your responses. I'm pretty fast at making holes with the awl it's just that I'm getting tired. My volume of work is increasing and when you've poked thousands of holes one by one in a day wth an awl my arms and hands want to fall off. I just don't like the idea of machine sewing but I have no idea what else to do. But I'm hurting these days. I hope someone will chime in here with a solution that will solve this problem. ))

Nyis

Hi guys,

Thanks so much for your responses. I'm pretty fast at making holes with the awl it's just that I'm getting tired. My volume of work is increasing and when you've poked thousands of holes one by one in a day wth an awl my arms and hands want to fall off. I just don't like the idea of machine sewing but I have no idea what else to do. But I'm hurting these days. I hope someone will chime in here with a solution that will solve this problem. ))

Nyis

[Jax]

I know just what you mean, I made a set of driving harness for my dad some years ago & hand stitched it all 10 stitches per inch, some straps are 6' long with 4 rows of stitching....it wasn't just my arms that were aching, me bum was too from sitting for so long

[katsass]

Well, I have seen the stitching of an (other) old guy that uses a small bench-top drill press to punch his stitching holes. He uses an overstitch to mark spacing, then uses a small diameter nail (about the size of a #0 harness needle) as the bit. He runs the drill press at it's lowest speed, and as I watched him work, it showed very little (if any) leather being removed from the hole. He has a few boxes of different sizes of nails, and uses a smooth slab of plywood to back his work when drilling/punching the holes. His stitching looked pretty damned good - - to this grumpy old man's eye. He is primarily a knife maker, and doesn't like to spend much time working leather for sheaths. Mike

[Dwight]

Most of my work is sewn by a Tippmann Boss, . . . or I would probably be doing concrete work, or roofing, . . .

That said, . . . every now and then, . . . a project comes up that "needs" to be hand sewn. I have two options: 1) take the thread out of the Boss, . . . make the holes, . . . and stitch the rascal, . . . OR, . . . like Mike said above, . . . use a drill press. When I use a press (in the states we get Chinese cheapies for $50 or so), . . . it is never even plugged in. I mount my regular sewing needle in the chuck, . . . punch the hole.

I also make sure my needle is oriented correctly at all times. If I can see the eye, . . . it's wrong, . . . and I re-orient it so I cannot.

The drill press is not as fast as the Boss, . . . but it is really good for small stuff, . . . and you can have as much control over where everything is done as you could possibly want.

You can creatively also use the drill press as a sewing machine if you punch through, . . . pull up a little bit to produce a loop in the thread under the leather, . . . use a second needle, . . . throw it through the loop (thread attached of course), . . . and pull it all tight.

May God bless,

Dwight

[Rawhide]

put a diamond awl blade in a sewing machine, and use it to punch the stitch holes..

[WinterBear]

Well, you say you don't have an industrial machine, right? Do you have a non-industrial machine? It may or may not be able to pierce the leather with an awl or a needle, it depends on the machine.

What about taking the ideas in here, and chucking the awl into a stationary drill press or a small arbor press? Small presses are generally pretty affordable, and you wouldn't need something with a lot of power or a ratchet. I've been thinking of something similar myself for making these thick welts on some axe covers I'm making, but wasn't sure if it would work. I'm reading through these posts, and beginning to think it should. The leather I'm trying to sew is thick and hard enough that as even as sharp as my awl is, I'm having a hard time punching through. I just can't hold my hands steady enough. If I find and outfit a press with an awl, I think I'll plan on backing the leather I'm punching with a thick piece of cork topped with a piece of skirting to give the awl something to "bite" into that won't damage the awl once it punches through the leather.

[Andrew Chee]

I've used a sewing machine without thread to punch the holes. They come out nice and neat, evenly spaced. Then when you hand sew it, you can't even tell that the machine made the holes. The only problem with a machine js that it cant get into some of the tight areas that you can by hand but the you can always use your awl at that point. You should try it.

Andrew