If you are interested to make your own handmade leather wares, you will need some basic tools to start with. Here we will show you the most important tools that you need to use.
1. Leather Knife / Pen Knife – Leather Cutting Warrior
To start a leather project, the first thing you need will be a knife to cut your leather. Professional craftsmen will have their special leather knife which they are comfortable or feel handy with. There are different kinds of leather knife, such as round leather knife and Japanese leather knife. It require practice to handle this knife. For beginners, you can use a penknife to cut your leather, make sure it is sharp and it will just work fine on leather cutting.
2. Leather Hole Puncher – Making Holes On Leather For Accessories
We will need to install accessories likes snaps buttons, dot rivets, or others accessories that require a hole to install. There are so many different sizes that you can choose, depends on the size of the accessories you are installing.
3. Mallet / Hammer – Important For Accessories Installation
To install snaps button for example, you will need a mallet or a hammer to do so. Normal hammer can be used as well, but it might damage your leather tools, therefore we are usually using a wooden or rubber mallet.
4. Leather Hole Chisel – Making Neat Holes For Stitching
Hand stitching or saddle stitching is one of the most important and basic skills in leather craft. To make a neat and nice stitch, we will need to make marks or small holes before sewing.
There are different sizes of chisels, depends on the size of your product and how close you want each stitches to be. The most commonly used are diamond shaped chisels.
5. Needle And Thread – For Hand Stitching
Stitching, of cause most importantly, you will need needle and thread. For leather stitching, wax thread are being widely used. Needle sizes are depends on the thread you are using and also the sizes and distance between each hole that you made with your chisel.
Once you have all these ready, YES, you are really to make yourself a simple hand stitched leather ware 🙂
