Creasing

[badger]

First off, please forgive my ignorance....self taught.

I've never creased with a hot crease. I've cased the leather and worked the crease in with a cold tool. It gives OK results but not as crisp and clean, or deep, as I'd like.

I'm a fan of creasing as I think compressing the leather at the edge is better than removing it with a groover or race. Just my opinion. I know different people have different ideas about this.

How do I go about creasing with a hot tool? Also, is there a special crease I should get or will the tools I have be OK? They're standard leatherworking tools. I have a Dixon screw crease I like.

How do I go about hot creasing and what do I need to watch out for.

Many thanks as always,

Karl

[rdb]

I'm not sure what a dixon "screw creaser" looks like, but I just use a small propane torch to heat my push bevelers. Heating maybe a bad word. Actually, just a little more than "warm to the touch" is how hot I make it. I've seen videos on you tube of Italian box makers that have some sort of hot plate they put their burnishing iron tools on, warm the tool, then apply.

Too hot, and it burns the leather, which is what you don't want. Just right, and you have a good looking, more permanent crease. I'm not sure, but I think it's a dying part of the trade. I seldom see anyone do it anymore. Too bad production is more important now.

[celticleather]

I crease just about everything I make; I think it gives a more 'classic' look to the finished product. I have three adjustable creasers (all Dixon) that I use regularly. One has a fairly broad squared-off creasing edge that I use hot, but only on bridle leathers. Another has a narrower squared-off edge that I use cold on cased tooling leathers, and the third has a rounded V-shaped edge, which I also use cold on cased tooling leathers.

I guess it's one of those questions where ten people would give fifteen different methods of working!

[UKRay]

Many years ago I was taught to use a hot creaser - we actually used a gas ring to heat up the 'business end' of the tool - because it speeded up the process when working with hard harness leather. The heat from the hot iron seemed to melt the fat in the leather and leave a nice sharp crease without too much pressure, although there were plenty of occasions when the creasing iron was used cold to finish off a harness job and you would be hard pushed to tell the two apart.

It rather depends what leather you are working with too. A cold crease in a leather with a high fat content looks a lot different to a crease in a piece of undyed vegtan. I don't have a problem creasing wet vegtan with a cold tool - but try the same trick on a bit of bridle leather and you won't be happy with the results.

In the main, I work almost exactly the same way as CelticLeather, I crease most of my work and have a very similar set of creasers - although I do use a collection of single edge creasers to lay down ornamental creases on some of my fancy strapwork.

The main difference would seem to be that if I have a fair number of straps to crease I tend to use a cold roller creasing machine - mine were both made by the British United Shoe Machinery Company sometime around 1950 as far as I can tell. They make a lovely job and speed up the process no end.

[barra]

This Vid gives a small visual glimps into hot creasing. Go to the bridle production segment. I just use a small gas camping stove. You can use a jam jar with a hole in the lid for a wick. Pour a small amount of Kero, lamp oil or metho in the jar.

Barra

Edited November 19, 2008 by barra

[Crystal]

Badger, I'm going to jump in on your topic here and ask a few more questions:

Is creasing done for a decorative purpose or does it have a functional aspect?

If you are stitching do you crease and put your stitches in the crease line (like when using a groover) or do you stitch and add a crease to the outside?

Thanks-

Crystal

[badger]

Crystal,

Personally I use creasing for four reasons:

1. To drop the stitches below the surface of the leather so they don't get worn so readily.

2. To make the finished piece neater and more professional looking.

3. For decorative purposes.

4. By creasing you compress the fibres near the edge of the piece. I believe this strengthens the edge.

Hope this helps. it is only my opinion, however.

Karl

Edited November 19, 2008 by badger

[UKRay]

Crystal,

Personally I use creasing for four reasons:

1. To drop the stitches below the surface of the leather so they don't get worn so readily.

2. To make the finished piece neater and more professional looking.

3. For decorative purposes.

4. By creasing you compress the fibres near the edge of the piece. I believe this strengthens the edge.

Hope this helps. it is only my opinion, however.

Karl

That all sounds about right to me too Crystal. I also use a creased line to set the border away from the edge when I am stamping leather and to give me a guideline when I am using a freehand groover.

You might find the attached link useful as it outlines a number of processes in pictures.

http://www.journeyman-leather.co.uk/aboutleatherworking.html

[Crystal]

Thank you Karl and Ray!

Crystal

[Tannin]

Useful posts and great video

...
You might find the attached link useful as it outlines a number of processes in pictures.

http://www.journeyman-leather.co.uk/aboutleatherworking.html

That link no longer works but I reckon this is probably an updated version of it: http://www.journeyman-leather.co.uk/aboutleatherworking8.html Nice.

Edited November 5, 2014 by Tannin

[silverwingit]

Just a quick note about flames sources. You don't want to use a match, cigarette lighter or candle as they will soot up your creaser. Based on advice on leatherworker I bought a nice little soot-free alcohol lamp just for this purpose.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005QDP42K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Good luck and please let us know how you fare.

Michelle

[Tannin]

Neat. I recently bough a screw crease. I warmed mine on the top of my wood-burner (I used a wooden stick to keep the wooden handle off the hot surface). It seemed to work well enough but I am still new to this tool. I found it quite difficult to follow edges, particularly round corners - although it work well on a straight strap. I wonder if a thick, curved piece of wire or an old screw driver, ground with a curved & rounded edge might work as well or better though.

Edited November 10, 2014 by Tannin

[Basically Bob]

Tannin,

Keep practicing and you will get better with the creaser. Corners are difficult at first but you will get better at it. On a rounded corner, I will move the creaser and the leather at the same time. You will eventually get a feel for it.

Also, it really isn't necessary to use the creaser hot on veg tan leather. I use mine cold all the time, starting with a light line on the leather, dry. After I have a line set, I wet the leather, let it come back close to its original colour then do it again with lots of pressure.

Just curious, what type of screw crease are you using?

Keep practicing

[Tannin]

Thanks Bob. I have a new Dixon screw crease. I bought mine from Dixon's on eBay.co.uk, they just started selling there. I made an offer price and they accepted it. Simpler and better than ordering from their website I think. The tool itself looks better than their standard image the screw is rather long tho.

[unicornleather]

Traditionally we hot crease bridlework in the UK, the reason is to seal the fibres of the hide on the edges and to give it a decorative crease mark.

The crease line should be about 1/16th of an inch in from the edge on bespoke handmade bridles, the finer the crease the better quality the work.

The mark for the stitches (pricking iron) should be 1/8th of an inch in from the edge, is other words the line of the stitches and the crease mark should be equidistant from each other and the edge.

The heavier the work as in say harness or headcollars the crease can be further in to suit the heavy feel of the work in question.

When you buy a screw crease you need to file the edge down a little, I will try to get a photo of mine in the next day or two to show you.Filing makes sure one edge is higher than the other to help you "lock it into the edge" whilst creasing and the lower edge of the crease when hot will seal the edges of the leather/fibres nicely. Look at this photo,

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you can see that both sides of the crease are the same length, this makes it hard to use to get finer thinner and narrower lines, if you file the left side down a little so it's shorter it works properly and gives you GOOD crease marks.

Always cold crease first, then heat the iron a few seconds in a gas flame (don't use anything else or it puts soot on the crease which sticks and catches the crease on the leather as well as blackening lighter coloured leathers)

Hold it over hand like you are going to bring it down as in a stabbing action and follow your cold creased line, try do do as much as you can in one go without stopping other than to re heat the crease again. DON'T have the crease so hot it burns the leather, the idea is to melt the fats in the hide to give you a nice shiny crease mark.

I always bring it back towards me, it's easier to control and lock your arm in position, don't bring your arm back but move your whole body back by stepping or leaning back as I do, you'll get a much neater straighter line doing it that way.

If you have to stop mid line to re heat the crease simply go back a couple of inches over what you have done and gently bring the crease back into the cold creased line and apply a little more pressure to continue.

Hope this helps?

It's hard to try to explain it, it's something I take for granted as I have been doing in nearly 30 years in the English saddlery trade.

Oz

Edited December 10, 2014 by unicornleather

[Tannin]

Thank you Unicornleather, that is very helpful I will try to put that into practice. Making the two sides of the tool uneven makes sense to me although, me being new to this & the tool being new, I will likely be cautious grinding the tool down. I almost bought a used screw crease (was out-bid several times) - I expect some used ones would already have been ground-down; I saw one where the edges looked quite fine/slim, almost sharp. Interesting to hear how you use this to mark your stitch line, I will try that; I currently use a pair of old cobbler's dividers to scratch my guide line (per Nigel Armitage's youtube videos).

BTW This is Dixon's ebay store: http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/joseph-dixon-leather-tools

Edited December 11, 2014 by Tannin

[unicornleather]

Thank you Unicornleather, that is very helpful I will try to put that into practice. Making the two sides of the tool uneven makes sense to me although, me being new to this & the tool being new, I will likely be cautious grinding the tool down. I almost bought a used screw crease (was out-bid several times) - I expect some used ones would already have been ground-down; I saw one where the edges looked quite fine/slim, almost sharp. Interesting to hear how you use this to mark your stitch line, I will try that; I currently use a pair of old cobbler's dividers to scratch my guide line (per Nigel Armitage's youtube videos).

BTW This is Dixon's ebay store: http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/joseph-dixon-leather-tools

You can use both to mark where you need to prick out the stitch marks, use the dividers when the screw crease is still too warm to use to mark the where the stitches go.

[MonicaJacobson]

Great thread - I'm about to a creaser, so this has been very valuable.

[lranger]

For what it's worth:

This is a tool I recently made. It is a 120v- 30w wood burning iron, but I made the metal tip that you see on it. The tips attach to the iron by a single screw. The wattage is low so it doesn't actually burn, or scorch the leather.

I have been using it on the painted edges of light weight garment leather like the French fileteuse tool is used in the videos going around lately. It really works very well. I run the flat surface along the edge before painting and it really smoothes the edge. Then I paint the edge, and run the flat surface along the edge again.

Also, if you run the flat surface of the tip along the flat surface of the edge of the leather, it will also smooth that surface and compress it somewhat. It takes out the pebble wrinkles in the surface of the leather, making it smooth.

And, if I use the thin edge of the tip and run it along the leather, it makes a very nice crease. I am going to make another tip, but smaller and rounded for doing creases, so it will go around corners.

I am amazed at how well it works.

[lranger]

Here is a pic of a quick example I just made.

I made a crease around the inside of the stitching on the vegtan piece.

The black piece is 2 oz. garment. I put a crease around one side and I smoothed the edge surface on the other side.

It will also smooth and compress the flesh side, getting rid of the hairs.

I only recently made this tool and I have not experimented with it very much.

[unicornleather]

Here are a couple of photos of my screw creaser, you can see that it's not the same length both sides, I have filed it down only a little(no more than 2mm) but it helps lock the tool into the side of the hide you are creasing.

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[unicornleather]

Here's a crease line,above the white stitches you can see the line should be equi distant from the edge and the row of stitches.

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