Stop blaming your tools

[liquify]

Hi I've been working with leather for some time but I'd like to improve my works and I decided I'd like to buy some quality tools,like a skiving knife and pricking irons,especially to make wallets.I don't want to spend 150$ on pricking irons,let's say 50$ max.

I have one one iron I bought some years ago and its not bad but I can't make perfect straight stitches when I have to punch 3-4 layers of leather,not sure if it depends on me not keeping it perfectly straight or what.This iron has 4 prongs only and I was thinking maybe using a 6 prongs or more would be easier?

Can you recommend some good ones?I'm in Italy so not easy to order from US based stores.Thanks for any suggestion!

 

[paloma]

I'm not rich enough to buy cheap.

[Handstitched]

18 hours ago, Sheilajeanne said:

Al Stohlman started out with home-made tools, and look what he achieved!

I still follow the ' Al Stohlman' method .

When it comes to tools,if its not available, or too costly,  I adapt. 

I don't think theres ever been a time that I've blamed my tools  .   Thats like blaming a whisky maker for a hangover . 

HS

[chrisash]

I suggest there is at least three layers of leather tools

Cheap (normally crap)

Low cost(workable tools that do the job without frills or bangles)

Expensive (may be first class or maker living on old reputation)

It come down to how clever you spend your money i guess, some people in London spend a thousand pounds for a room in a hotel to sleep for a night, if you are rich its hard not to spend your money on expensive items, if you are poor you don't have many options, most of us are somewhere in the middle ground

[jcuk]

The latest stitching chisels seem to me to be the main culprit at the moment,  newer better ones every week or so it seems - people saying just got these and they don't  seem as good as the newer ones from that maker,  chasing the latest model not a good policy. Hermes Louis Vuitton and other fine leather goods makers have been using Vergez Blanchard other old tool makers of forever they don't  feel the need to change every week, Same in the saddlery industry. Yes i know some maybe trading on their reputation but the tools still seem to work if the effort is put in on using the tools you already have.

Hope this helps

JCUK   

[Hardrada]

6 hours ago, paloma said:

I'm not rich enough to buy cheap.

[billybopp]

When I was in HS, I took up photography did lots of pics for the yearbook of sporting events, dances and such.  I picked up a book on the subject and I think it summed up tools pretty well.  Better cameras do not make a better photographer, they just make getting the photograph that you want easier.

- Bill

[Kcstott]

Money will only get you so far, 
skill is needed and the only way to get there is practice. 

[johnv474]

The difference between a cheap guitar and an expensive guitar is the player, until he reaches the limit of that guitar.  Eric Clapton could make a cheapo guitar sound better than most but a beginner can’t make an expensive guitar sound good any more than a Boy Scout gets better aim by buying a sniper rifle.

 

Most of my tools are neither cheap nor expensive.  You can get by with about six tools, a la Daisukenshin, and none of them are expensive.

 

I threw out all of my tools yesterday.  I am replacing them with a knife, a fork, a spoon, an awl, and, optionally, wing dividers.  Throw in a head knife and some needles and the set is complete.  

 

Owning too many tools gets in the way of learning how to use them.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2020 by johnv474

[Klara]

On 11/30/2020 at 2:44 PM, liquify said:

...I have one one iron I bought some years ago and its not bad but I can't make perfect straight stitches when I have to punch 3-4 layers of leather,not sure if it depends on me not keeping it perfectly straight or what....

I hope this response finds you for I think I've just seen the answer to your problem: 

 

 

As for the general topic: I'm working with wool semi-professionally. When I started out I went tool-crazy - always looking for a better spindle, a better spinning wheel... Then I learnt that my brain and hands are the most important thing and now I mostly agree with the OP.

The problem is just how to recognise the difference between cheap-but-serviceable tools and useless crap. johnv474 mentioned guitars - there's low cost functioning guitars, and there's vaguely guitar-shaped objects that are impossible to play because the frets are too high or too low or the tuning won't hold or they have other technical defects. 

My first leather tools I bought from Amazon. 4 chisels (or pricking irons? By the time the description is translated into French it is incomprehensible) at half the price of a very similar-looking product in the local leather shop, a handle for groover and 3 edge bevelers and a burnisher. My logic was "What can go wrong with making chisels?" and they were what I wanted most. That the groover works - and pretty decently, after I honed it following JH Hall's video - was a  nice surprise. I haven't had much luck with the edge bevelers so far, but I don't use veg tanned leather at the moment, I believe. 

The Vergez  Blanchard awl blade, however, I bought in the shop and it's a world of difference with the old one (ouch!) AND a lot cheaper than a complete no-name awl from elsewhere (had the handle). The same shop also sold me a cheap knife - I'll see whether I'll be able to keep it sharp. If not then I prefer to ruin a 20-Euro knife rather than an expensive one... (strop is already made).

And I figure that's what I need for the moment (plus leather, thread, glue, needles... of course) 

By the way, does anybody know why saddler's needles are sold in packs of 25?