Sharpening a diamond awl - questions

[Alaisiagae]

I'm going to attempt to sharpen my awl blade, following the video by Niel Armitage on how to sharpen a saddler's awl. His process is similar to JHLeather's video. I'm still a little fuzzy on what exactly my sandpaper is supposed to do. Am I sharpening the edges of the awl blade and/or am I reducing the "shoulder" of the blade? Any tips or suggestions? It's a cheapie Craftool diamond awl that I'm working with.

[YinTx]

I think if you ask 6 people you might get 6 answers.  I have a pile of awls, and they all have different profiles, and I use the one that gives me the stitch I need on the project I happen to be working on at the time.

In general, I would consider dulling the upper sections of the blade, maintain some bulk in the upper section to open the hole up for your needle and thread without cutting a bigger hole.  If it is only stretching the leather hole open, then the hole will close back down after you have done your stitch if you don't pull too much tension.  If the sides are sharp, they will cut the hole open, and it will not close down.  And on the diamond shape, you don't want 4 cuts.

The shape of the point is personal preference.  I have one that is a squared tip, one that is a short point, and some that are very long drawn out sword points.  Important thing is to make sure the sides are equal (at least opposing sides) so you don't cut uneven holes.

Equally important to all this is the final finish on the blade.  High polish gives me the best results.

YinTx

[zuludog]

It's reasonably easy, and therefore relatively cheap to make tools for leatherwork like knives, awls, and stitching chisels, but with these you only get a basic or average standard of finish, and traditionally you are expected to do the final finishing, sharpening, and polishing yourself. That's the main reason why top class tools are so expensive, as the maker has done that for you, but that usually involves careful hand finishing, which takes time & money. Sharpening an awl yourself is tedious and fiddly, but it saves money 

Search YT for 'sharpening an awl' and there are several videos, and I think they all follow the same method - pushing the blade back & forth on a fine stone or abrasive paper followed by a strop. An awl blade has has a diamond cross section, and you need to smooth & polish each face so that it slides through the leather easily. The two edges should be fairly sharp and polished, but they don't need to be absolutely razor sharp

Have the blade almost flat to do the faces, and raise the handle slightly to do the tip

The tip of the awl should not be a fine needle point, it should have a very small rounded chisel tip. Snip off the end  1 or 2mm , then regrind, reshape, & polish. Have a careful look at other people's awls on YT to see what it should be like

For polishing I would use 600 then 1000 then 1500 grit wet & dry paper, with a drop or two of water; followed by stropping

If you have a cheap Craftool awl I assume it's from Tandy. If it is -

Stitching Awl 31218 - 01 or Craftool Pro 83020-00 then you're in with a chance

The 4-in-1 awl 3209-00 is notoriously poor quality (that's the polite version) If you have that you could use the round/scratch awl blade as there's not much you can do wrong with those, but don't bother with the diamond awl blades, cut your losses and get something else, ie better

If you have to buy another diamond awl I would consider a Vergez - Blanchard from Rocky Mountain Leather Supply or an Osborne haft with a chuck or collet and a #42 or #43 Osborne blade from Weaver

When you've finished the blade should slide through the leather easily - see how JH Leather does it

Preparing and sharpening an awl like this takes a while, but once you've got it right you should only need to strop occasionally

Edited September 4, 2020 by zuludog

[McCarthy]

I've spent hours trying to sharpen awls the Armitage way and the method I've settled on is to just use a Dremel with a felt buffing wheel with green polishing compound. I like the tip to be completely rounded and very thin. If you have a point it will pierce the leather in the first place it touches, but with a rounded tip it can nestle down into the prick mark and be perfectly centered. It will still go through the leather like butter. The diamond shoulders definitely need to be removed at the tip, and smoothed out as much as possible on the rest of the blade. My ideal awl is not even a diamond shape but flat with parallel edges.

 

[jcuk]

Is this a new awl or one you have already been using, both my go to awls i have not sharpened in a long time no need to last time i had to resharpen one was when i dropped it had to re-profile the the blade about 20 years ago used a small diamond file and strop worked okay for me still does now. Have a newer one that i have had to work on to get it up to speed did the same but with a lot more stropping and polishing works good now don't need it now because both my main awls are fine but it there and ready just in case, nothing fancy cost around £10.

Hope this helps

JCUK 

[Alaisiagae]

@YinTx Thank you for the information about which parts of the blade to focus on. @zuludog I have the 31218-01 awl from Tandy. It pierces pebble grain pretty well, but veg tan is more difficult. JHLeather and Niel A. both file/polish/sharpen each face of the diamond by stroking down the length of the awl blade. I did see one video where the man filed in a side-to-side motion (perpendicular to the blade axis). What kind of tool could nip off the tip of the blade? I don't have a lot of options - my dad has a ton of tools, but I don't know what they are and wouldn't want to damage them. I have 300, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 grits sandpaper. 

@McCarthy Oh, the illustrations are very helpful, thank you! I don't have pricking irons, but maybe I can use my diamond chisels as pricking irons. 

@jcuk It's not a new awl (I bought it at most 12 months ago), but it has seen only scant use. I tend to use my smallest drive hole punch from a Mini Punch set because I have a lot of thicker nylon braided cord, rather than thin thread that can fit in an awl-made slit. But, since my diamond chisels were giving me some problems, I wanted to see if I could have better results with my awl.

I want to make a small leather coin pouch (something you can put in your pants pocket) for my uncle. I'm not even sure veg tan is the best choice of leather, it's a bit more stiff than I want, so I've also been looking at other types of leather with a slightly firm "hand" but not too firm - I worry that if the leather is too soft, it will be very floppy and annoying to open the front flap (fastened with a glove snap).

[zuludog]

Getting an awl blade right is not straightforward. It's easy enough to get it nearly there, but getting it just right is remarkably fiddly and frustrating

I suggest you have a look at all the YT videos on sharpening an awl. There aren't too many, and you'll start to see how it's done, picking up a bit more information and ideas from each one

These are good -

How to Sharpen leather awl; Dixon Diamond parts 1 & 2 by Leathertoolz

Details made perfection - awl sharpening by Leathercraft Masterclass

How to sharpen a stitching awl by Zestien

In those they have close ups of what a finished blade should look like

Interestingly, in Nigel Armitage's video he leaves the tip fairly pointed. I suppose it's just personal preference

Leathertoolz used end cutters to nip off the tip of the blade, but you could use side cutters or the wire cutting part of the jaws on engineer's pliers

You could also just grind back the tip on a medium to fine stone

But whatever you use, remember that it's a lot easier to remove metal than it is to put it back on again!

You have a good selection of abrasive paper

Yes, you can use stitching chisels as pricking irons. JH Leather uses pricking irons and an awl for most of her sewing, that will show how they're used. If you watch her sewing with an awl it's magic to watch, and a standard for us all - well, certainly me - to aim for

Edited September 5, 2020 by zuludog

[jcuk]

2 hours ago, zuludog said:

Getting an awl blade right is not straightforward. It's easy enough to get it nearly there, but getting it just right is remarkably fiddly and frustrating

I suggest you have a look at all the YT videos on sharpening an awl. There aren't too many, and you'll start to see how it's done, picking up a bit more information and ideas from each one

These are good -

How to Sharpen leather awl; Dixon Diamond parts 1 & 2 by Leathertoolz

Details made perfection - awl sharpening by Leathercraft Masterclass

How to sharpen a stitching awl by Zestien

In those they have close ups of what a finished blade should look like

Interestingly, in Nigel Armitage's video he leaves the tip fairly pointed. I suppose it's just personal preference

Leathertoolz used end cutters to nip off the tip of the blade, but you could use side cutters or the wire cutting part of the jaws on engineer's pliers

You could also just grind back the tip on a medium to fine stone

But whatever you use, remember that it's a lot easier to remove metal than it is to put it back on again!

You have a good selection of abrasive paper

Yes, you can use stitching chisels as pricking irons. JH Leather uses pricking irons and an awl for most of her sewing, that will show how they're used. If you watch her sewing with an awl it's magic to watch, and a standard for us all - well, certainly me - to aim for

Glad to see its not just me that leaves the tip fairly pointed works for me too. 

And have say some things are being over thought at times or so it seems to me. Just learn to use and maintain your tools in a way that works for you if its seems to be working fine why change it. Yes i do know some people are new to this craft but before the age of the net that's what we had to do. A good book to have near your work bench, you may already have it if not its a good investment not just for beginners.

https://tandyleather.world/collections/books-patterns/products/leathercraft-tools-book

Hope this helps

JCUK 

Edited September 5, 2020 by jcuk

[Alaisiagae]

So, I spent the past 1.5 hours working on this, started with 320, then 400, 600, and worked my way up to 2500 grit. I mostly followed Niel A's method. I tried rounding the tip, but then it wouldn't pierce the leather, so I made it pointy again. It goes through thick belly very cleanly, but I'm still struggling on some thin dyed veg tan. Well, at least I got a polished awl blade for my trouble.

[fredk]

Now you have a sharp blade, the problem might be there is too much 'give' in the thin leather. On the opposite side to your awl hold a piece of cork against the leather and push the blade thru the leather into it