Beginner Working With Thicker Layers Of Leather And Inverse Pricking Iron

[naz]

hi,

beginner here and I recently started saddle stitching w vergez blanchard tools and I use cheaper remnant leathers to practice and they never come in thin quality sizes, although I use a skiving knife to thin the thick edges, usually I deal w leather where my pricking tool wont help to leave/ marks on the back side, is using REVERSE / INVERSE PRICKING IRON which i recently found on vergez tools website, is it for this purpose?

/also do you know which pricking size hermes uses usually? no. 10 or 9 please? /

thank you!

[DavidL]

Hermes uses a few different size irons and use portmanteau/ inverse irons instead of regular irons on the front side. Just a guess but they probably use 9 to 11 for watch straps and horse saddle and I would think around 8-9 for the larger goods. If I had to guess I would say 8 vergez (dixon 7 equivalent) I have the 9 vergez and the stitch looks a bit smaller. I wouldn't be surprised if they use 9 for the handle and 8 for the dee shield part (part that connects the handle to the bag) . They are very close in size so its hard to say. Keep in mind that a majority of their goods are machine stitched or mostly

I recently have had success with cast the thread - left needle first, right needle second, take the loop on the backside and throw it over the needle (away from yourself). The few times I have used it before was using thin leather and it didn't work so well. On thicker leather the stitch looks nice and with thin thread .6mm thread it looks better IMO than thicker .8mm. This technique if you are able to get the holes somewhat straight the back stitch will look neat. Even hermes items if you look through google images has imperfections in the stitches and isn't suppose to be 100 percent perfect. In my opinion casting the thread is a better option than not casting the thread with stretchy leathers like chrome or pull up and thick leathers.

You could also use the same iron on both sides, wont give you the angled stitch though. Same could be done with a inverse on the opposite side especially on very thick leathers . On a single piece of leather or multiple pieces of leather that is glued together usually the iron is hit on one side and stitched up. Another thing you could try is to hammer the edges in gently after its glued or use one of those clamp pliers and compress the edges to get a better stitch.

Okay, enough ranting from me..

[naz]

hi DavidL, thank you much for your post, very helpful! I have size 10 and it looks a little short than bigger hermes bag stitches,

Can you explain please also why Hermes uses portmanteau instead of regular irons for the front side? Is it only the direction of the angled stitches that change in that case?

Edited December 1, 2014 by naz

[DavidL]

yes the stitch goes downwards to the left stitching towards you. In the corners the stitches will be slanted with the Portmanteau. With the reg. iron the stitch is straight or its angled upwards and separated instead of slanted and close together like the Portmanteau.

[Macca]

If you get the chance, at an airport or something it is worth visiting a Hermes shop, they are happy for you to have a look at their range of small leather goods & yes you can handle them, get a good look. I recently spent some time at one in Paris, shop was very quiet so I think the sales guy was just happy someone was interested in having a look !

First thing that stands out, the stitching isn't prefect, it's very good but you can easily spot the hand made items.

If you handle them you will understand why they look so much better than anything the average leatherworker can produce, it's the leather they use, it's so much better than the stuff that is readily available to the public, the texture, firmness etc is just what you want for hand stitching, that & the edge tools/paints they use are the real difference

[DavidL]

Macca whats your take on the best leather species to work with (calf, cow, bull, kangaroo) that gives the nicest stitch and best leather to use as padding to thicken leather bag bottoms (they all seem similar and it might be a waste to use calf).

I find the denseness of kangaroo veg cuts great and stitches up nicely.

[TwinOaks]

The inverse pricking iron has tines that are reveresed from the standard..OR as David wrote in the first post, you won't get slanted stitches. That's because if you punch both sides with the same pricking iron, the slots will for an ' X ' instead of a ' / ' when the pieces are put together. To get the same angle all the way through, the front and back stitch holes have to be mirrored.

[Hi Im Joe]

The inverse pricking iron has tines that are reveresed from the standard..OR as David wrote in the first post, you won't get slanted stitches. That's because if you punch both sides with the same pricking iron, the slots will for an ' X ' instead of a ' / ' when the pieces are put together. To get the same angle all the way through, the front and back stitch holes have to be mirrored.

Holy shit! Someone actually understands what I was trying to say in the other thread that lasted 5+ pages.

Sorry that was off topic but its nice to see I'm not crazy.

[Basically Bob]

... an ideal application for these pricking irons is on a mitred corner of a box.

[25b]

Ok, you all keep on doing what you're doing. I'll keep stitching using the same iron on both sides and will continue to get good stitches on both sides of my work.

Edited December 3, 2014 by 25b

[zikman]

I would suggest that you get the right leather first before dropping a load of money on another tool. If I used vergez blanchard pricking irons, I would not be using them on cheap remnant leather.

[naz]

Thank you Macca, twinoaks and all,

Here is my stitches the black one, and saw they were in different direction w the blue hermes one when I was using the regular pricking iron, couldnt figure out if hermes one was made w the inverse iron/portmentau ..

Edited December 4, 2014 by naz

[silverwingit]

Joe, I beg to differ. You are clearly crazy... about leatherwork!

And, keep it up!

Michelle

[Hi Im Joe]

Joe, I beg to differ. You are clearly crazy... about leatherwork!

And, keep it up!

Michelle

I'm crazy about a lot! Thanks though Michelle for the kind words!

[whipstitchwallets]

a major point of punching both sides of the leather with the same pricking iron is to separate the pieces before doing so, so you don't literally have X slits.

edit: to clarify, you would see an X if you could see through the leather

Edited December 4, 2014 by whipstitchwallets

[kevinp]

The idea behind the pricking iron is to prick one side of the leather and use a diamond awl to finish making the hole when you stitch, this is how the tool should be used. If you use it to punch all the way though your stitch marks will be too large which will make the thread lay wrong in the slits. And to prick both sides with the same tool is just odd

[25b]

And to prick both sides with the same tool is just odd

Just because you don't want to do something a certain way is no reason to say those of us that do this are "odd".

I use them on both sides of the leather and stitches on both sides then look good. There is NOTHING WRONG with doing it this way and people shouldn't be discouraged from trying it by callings them "odd" if they do.

[naz]

thanks Kevinp, can you see my last photos on page 1 and see if the blue hermes bag has the inverse pricking iron on the front stitch, can a regular awl still be used w the inverse pricking iron or does the awl also have to be inversed?(in other terms is there anything like inverse awl?)

Edited December 4, 2014 by naz

[DavidL]

i dont understand naz. Why cant you use the same awl on a portmanteau, there isn't a such thing as an inverse awl as it would look exactly the same as a reg. awl (unless I'm misunderstanding). Your stitches also completely depend on the leather you are using, low quality leather in my experience create a different stitch than kangaroo veg for instance.

[naz]

my vergez diamond awl shape follows the shape of regular my reg pricking iron but if the slants are reversed in portmentau wouldnt the cut shape of the my diamond awl create an X w the portmentau - I was wondering.

Edited December 4, 2014 by naz

[DavidL]

If you use portmanteau on the front side then your hole would look like this \ with reg iron like this /. If you use the same iron on face side of both pieces of leather (stitching 2 together) then you would have an X, even then a regular awl can be used and the stitches in this case look a bit more like it was machine stitched (consistency) creating a slightly less pronounced slant - this way is non traditional but it works if you need to stitch through a solid amount of leather and don't own a portmanteau and a regular iron of the same size.

Whether or not is possible to stitch through 1 to 2 cm of leather without an inverse iron is hard to say as I never stitched anything that thick. Only reference I have is of a hermes Birkin bag's top line of stitching that I "think" is hand stitched and is unknown if they use an inverse and a regular iron.

The thread on top is .8mm at 7spi

middle stitch is .6mm at 7spi

using the iron on both sides, just to show that there are different ways of doing the same thing.

Edited December 4, 2014 by DavidL

[naz]

I see, I got what you mean DavidL. thank you for the photos!

one last thing, you said

If you use portmanteau on the front side then your hole would look like this \

but when I use my 'regular' vergez iron, my stitches on the face look like \ , have you made a wrong spell there?

here is the photo, and I used regular vergez iron 10 here

Edited December 4, 2014 by naz

[DavidL]

I was referring to the mark that it makes on the leather. The portmanteau stitch would look like ///// where the mark of the iron would look like this \\\\ and the opposite is true with the regular iron.

Hope that helps.

[naz]

ok got it now. Thank you!

[kevinp]

Just because you don't want to do something a certain way is no reason to say those of us that do this are "odd".

I use them on both sides of the leather and stitches on both sides then look good. There is NOTHING WRONG with doing it this way and people shouldn't be discouraged from trying it by callings them "odd" if they do.

Didn't call you odd said the method was odd,