Cases for my Stitching and Pricking Irons

Over the years, I have collected various sets of hardware for making stitching holes.
I realized that it would nice to have them in cases, to protect their sharp edges from damage (and my grabbing fingers from gashes!), and to organize them.

Thus, a new set of projects was born! I have experimented with various types of cases.

The Old Tandy Irons

Here is the newest case, with my oldest irons:

The irons are (L to R) Craftool USA 8059 lacing chisel, 8040 lacing chisel, Craftool 8065 diamond chisel (1 tooth), Craftool 8066 diamond chisel (4 tooth).

I have had these for a long time-- the lacing chisels are over 20 years old, and the Tandy diamond chisels are thick and chunky (about 4 mm between teeth points).

I decided to do this one like cartridge loops, holding the irons onto a thick piece of leather. I decided to groove the leather so the irons would seat nicely:

And of course, I had to practice tooling on this 3 mm thick piece of leather. So I made some Korean clouds:

You can see the cut grooves here, which the red leather strip passes through. The leather is treated with HiLiter, and the edges are black Tokonole, burnished smooth.

This project is not quite finished -- I have to finish the riveting, but I seem to have misplaced my rivet setting kit! So I have a new one in the mail.

3 mm irons

The second set of irons are all from Goods Japan, so they are termed Japanese diamond chisels. I got these in a set, except for the 10 tooth, which I recently bought and added to the set.

These irons are budget priced, nicely polished, and well machined, with good knurled grips. Well-polished means that they come easily out of the leather. I can recommend them, but I would not recommend getting a full set like this -- all you really need are the 2 and the 10 tooth irons, for going around curves and making long straight lines.

Straight lines are important -- that's why the 3 and the 4 aren't really useful (too easy to wander off the line), and the 1 tooth isn't needed if you have a good diamond awl. The 6 tooth is okay, but the 10 tooth is better for making straight lines.

Here's the case closed up, showing the pockets (note the wider ones for the larger irons) and the snaps:

and here's the back side, with the decoration. :

That's the Clan Campbell boar and motto ("Never Forget"), in honor of my grandmother's heritage. I used an antique on the boar, and the case color is British Tan.

3mm Reverse Irons

I recently made a project which was made a lot easier by the use of what are termed "reverse" irons.

Brief aside to explain: stitching and pricking irons make slanted holes, like this: / / / / from the top down. But if you try to use the same iron on the bottom, you'll end up with this: X X X X which is not good for stitching. What you need is the top holes to go this way / / / / and the bottom holes to go this way \ \ \ \ so that they do not cross each other. Reverse irons do this.

I purchased a set of Kevin Lee reverse irons, in 3 mm to match the Goods Japan. Kevin Lee also sells regular and round irons, but he also offers some very inexpensive sets.

Here is their holder, in a softer leather:

And opened up:

You can see that learning how to stitch consistently is an important skill -- compare the lines here!

4 mm Pricking Irons

This is a set of inexpensive 4mm pricking irons from a Chinese company. These are not diamond chisels, but actual pricking irons.

They work okay, but they really require a lot of extra work to polish -- the teeth have a lot of rough machining marks which stick in the leather, making the iron hard to pull out. And that's a LOT of teeth to get between, with various grades of sandpaper! Most cheaper sets are this way -- this is one reason that the more expensive iron sets do cost more: they have been polished.

These teeth are a lot thinner and thus sharper than the diamond irons, so it's good to have them covered up like this. I have a 10, 5 and 2 tooth iron in this set.

5 mm Japanese style stitching chisels

I got this set over Christmas, and they needed a case, of course! These are from Maker's Leather Supply, and I picked them because they have a 10 tooth iron in the set.

The scrap bin provided some leather: the emerald green roundel and the red strap, and the red flap. I'm using my cheap fluorescent thread here, in yellow and green.

The back piece, which the strap is stitched to, is 3-4 mm veg tan leather. This case should do a nice job of protecting the irons, and protecting everything else from the irons.