Does anyone make traditional clicking patterns?

[bermudahwin]

Years back I used to get patterns in greyboard that were bound in brass around the edges, so that we could make a small run of a new design in the design shop, prior to production.

I suppose that the acrylic, laser cut ones may be the current equivalent, but am keen to locate a supplier of the old ones.

It is the cobblers, knives running around the brass binding that gave them the name 'clickers', and it would be good to get some made.

My old supplier in Rushden, Northamptonshire has ceased to exist, as has the back up in Northampton.

Any help or hints would be nice.

I will reach out to Barker Black who make lovely shoes, as their design philosophy page includes this:

The "Clickers" cut every piece of the pattern by hand using brass bound patterns, selecting only the finest grades of calf and suede void of imperfection.

http://barkerblack.com/design-philosophy

H

[bermudahwin]

Due to the overwhelming number of responses, I thought you all may like to know that S J West Press Knives Ltd, of Rushden, Northamptonshire do still make these clicking patterns.

www.sjwestpressknives.co.uk

Harry

[chrisash]

Hi Harry

http://www.presageservices.co.uk/ 

[bermudahwin]

Hi Chris,

The guy I spoke to said they did press knives there, but not brass-bound, board, clicking patterns, which is what I was looking for.

Thank you for the link though, I may talk to them about hot stamping.

Best

Harry

[johnv474]

Harry,
Thank you for sharing that link.  I had read about these in some traditional leatherwork books and wanted to try some, but knew of no suppliers.  I feared they could be obsolete. 

I am pleased to find out I was wrong on that point.

Cheers

[bermudahwin]

I am having a small pattern done in brass-bound board, and also in zinc, to be able to compare for future work.

I will report back when I've tried them.

Harry

[bermudahwin]

I have now received two patterns, and will try them later.

The service was excellent, and I cannot recommend S J West Press Knives in Rushden, UK, highly enough.

Harry

Edited January 17, 2019 by hwinbermuda

[Sheilajeanne]

And here I thought a 'clicker' was a press for cutting out pieces for leatherwork... :D

So, this is just a template, and not the actual cutting die for use in a press, right? And you have to use your knife and punches to make a belt blank and get it ready for tooling?

Edited January 17, 2019 by Sheilajeanne

[bermudahwin]

@ Sheilajeanne 

Yes the Clicking presses were developed following the manual cutting of paterns by operatives. The noise of the blades against the brass bound patterns was the clicking that gave the operatives the name 'clickers' and then the knives were clicking knives, and the press with press knives were developed to speed up the clicking process.

http://www.digitaljournal.com/image/111919

shows a clicking room. You can imagine the noise of the hand held knives around the templates.

https://bowstock.co.uk/acatalog/info_CKIND.html

is one of the clicking knives I use, but I grind my own blades from hacksaw blades.

I have used zinc patterns for ages and used to use brass bound in the factory as a designer, as it was cheaper to get a bound pattern to test the design and show buyers from the big stores, before getting press knives made up, as it was reasonably cheap to change single components.

As I am only doing batch runs at most, I thought I'd try both zinc and brass bound to see which I preferred now. The zinc cost 70% of the bound, but the thickness on the bound may make for a more even cut.

Some top end shoe makers still use the brass bound for their shoes probably as it is more traditional.

 

Harry

53 minutes ago, Sheilajeanne said:

get it ready for tooling?

I rarely tool my work nowadays, its not as popular in the UK, so I usually work in Bridle with a polished finish. Sometimes there are folks that want names on the belts, and I have stamps to do it, but not too often.

H

Edited January 17, 2019 by hwinbermuda