Eyelets and grommets

[Candipaige]

I am wondering where people order their eyelets and grommets from. I am making an arm gaurd for a friend and want the inside of the eyelet to be smooth and not scratch her arm. I am just looking into all this hardware and find there are different sizes. Do you have to have the matching setter for eyelets too? I bought a 4mm hand tool setter which is not working for the eyelets I bought. Tandy leather only had a setter for 5 and 6 mm.  Just getting a bit frustrated and need something good quality 

Edited April 21, 2018 by Candipaige

[fredk]

You need sail eyelets which have a 'washer' for one side. You need to have the matching setting tools for them. Two tools; a bar which widens and flattens part of the eyelet over the washer and an anvil with a centre hole and a circular groove; the groove prevents the eyelet from deforming and the hole allows the setting bar to do its job.

The commonly bought eyelets are just basic types which are crimped using a special pair of pliers; these types are basically rubbish and useless

[charon]

Fredk is right, I bought some of these here in Germany recently, they should be widely available everywhere. Got a tool for a rivet press which I use. These aren‘t expensive and usually sold in 100pcs/pack just as the normal squash eyelets

[fredk]

Good pictures charon. Better than trying to describe them. Thanks

[DJole]

On 4/21/2018 at 11:46 AM, Candipaige said:

I am wondering where people order their eyelets and grommets from. I am making an arm gaurd for a friend and want the inside of the eyelet to be smooth and not scratch her arm. I am just looking into all this hardware and find there are different sizes. Do you have to have the matching setter for eyelets too? I bought a 4mm hand tool setter which is not working for the eyelets I bought. Tandy leather only had a setter for 5 and 6 mm.  Just getting a bit frustrated and need something good quality 

If you are making this arm guard out of thick enough leather, perhaps you don't need metal eyelets or grommets at all, but just holes will work. 

If you are worried about cords pulling through the holes in the leather, maybe what I did here will work for you:

This is a leather coat I wear over my fencing doublet. You can see from the folds that it is not a heavy leather. The leather was from a remnant of an upholstery hide, so it's like a thick cloth.
But notice the oval pieces at the front seam. Those are reinforcement pieces for the leather ties, made from a thicker tooling leather. I have one oval piece on each of the overlap, with two holes in each, and the thongs come through that leather, so the ties pull on the thick leather rather than the thinner hide.
If you were to do something similar for your bracers, the leather is only one one side (the outer side), so there would be nothing sticking out on flesh side to irritate the person's arm, like what might happen with a grommet. 
A grommet may  get hot in the sun, or corroded over time by sweat, rain, etc. and need to be replaced. These leather "grommets" can also be replaced-- cut the stitches out and sew a new one on. 
I must admit that setting a series of grommets or eyelets will be much faster than all the stitching involved here!

Edited April 22, 2018 by DJole

[baroness]

Several people have spoken highly of https://goldstartool.com , for those who are in the US.

There is a thread that if you call them they will do a leatherworker's bundle that has the parts you would need most.