Top 5 Leather Craft Tools

Today I'm going over my top five leather tools. Stay tuned. So if you've been watching this channel for any amount of time and haven't become a leather worker by now, odds are you're at least interested in getting into the craft. And why not? You can make some pretty amazing stuff with just a few tools. That being said, it can be really daunting to try to figure out what kind of tools to start off with and how much you really need to spend in order to get into this hobby. Just as a quick aside, I made a video here that shows you how to do a lot of like tooling and stuff without any fancy tools at all. It just goes over stuff you can use that you probably already have laying around your house. For this video though, I'm specifically focusing down on things that are specialty leather craft tools that honestly just make life so much easier for me. And a quick caveat, this is my top five leather tools. It doesn't necessarily mean these are like the best tools that have ever existed. It just is what I always end up turning to and really does make my life easier. Number one. My first specialty tool is the swivel knife. The swivel knife is exactly what it sounds like. It is a knife that swivels. This bad boy is just used to cut designs or ornate shapes into your leather. So in that aforementioned video on how to do things with just what you have laying around the house, I go over that you can use like a razor knife or something in order to get your cuts in it. That will work. But it is way more difficult to get very precise, smooth lines with anything but your swivel knife. This really does make a huge difference when you're tooling leather. And just as a little aside, if you do end up getting a swivel knife, you should get some jeweler's rouge too in order to keep it sharp. All you have to do is spread this stuff onto the flesh side of leather and then use it to just kind of sharpen up your blade again. But yeah, even above stamps, I really like using the swivel knife. Like I can use the back of a nail if I need to bevel something in. You can get really creative with what you use as a stamp. But in order to cut that shape in in the first place, there really is no replacing a good swivel knife. Number two, this thing. A rotary punch is probably one of the most useful tools that I have for leather grafting. Now, of course, you can also use the hole punches that you use with a hammer. So they're individual punches and you change the head on them and whatever. But this has just ended up being super easy to use. I can go through multiple layers of leather. It's quick and consistent and there's just something satisfying with that little click. It's really great. And if you're creative, you can use it for way more than just punching like holes, like lace holes or whatever. I often use these when I wanna make a spacer for a belt buckle to go through. I'll lay down two holes and then I'll just connect them together with my razor knife and bam, I have like a big oblong hole. So yes, versatile and useful. I use this tool more than almost anything else. I love this thing. Coming in at my number three spot is my edge beveler. These come in a bunch of different sizes and they're basically just used to take a little bit off of the edge of your leather in order to round it out a little bit. Not like the sexiest use of a tool or whatever, but that effect is actually really hard to get any other way. Like you can try running a razor across it, but it's not gonna be as consistent. You're gonna get like dips everywhere. This just makes it look professional and cool as soon as you use it. Again though, and I feel like a lot of people miss that when they start using this tool, you're gonna want some jeweler's rouge in order to keep that sharp. Use it exactly the same way. You put it on the flesh side of some leather and then you run this across it to keep the little tiny blade that's between this fork here sharp. Again, can you get away with not using this tool and just using a razor knife or something? Sure. Will it turn out as good? I don't think so. I don't think you can get it as good as this will make it. Thus on my list, I use this almost every leather project I do. Number four. That's a weird way I made four, but this felt boring. In my number four spot, I have hammered in this diamond chisel here. YouTube either says they're called a diamond stitching punch or a diamond chisel. Regardless, it's this little bad boy for making stitch holes. They come in various sizes with different number of teeth so you can go along your project and make all the stitch holes you need to make tight turns and all that kind of jazz. And they are invaluable if you are stitching by hand. There is no way you're gonna wanna be making all of those holes individually. Having one of these bad boy that lay down eight holes all at once is huge when you have a big stitching project. I have made it no secret on the show that I do not like hand stitching. It kinda kills me a little bit. It's nice if you're just relaxing, but getting it on camera is really, really hard. Regardless, if I had to go through and punch every one of those holes by hand with just an awl, that would be horrible. It would be mind-numbing and they wouldn't turn out exactly straight. Using this, we're able to lay down all the holes we need. They're gonna stay in a straight line and it's gonna be fast and easy. I definitely recommend using this bad boy. And number five is the most important tool as far as I'm concerned. Before we get to it, I wanted to hit up some honorable mentions. As I said, stitching can be the bane of my existence, but one thing that really helps it out is a stitching pony. The whole purpose of this thing is to be another set of hands for you and hold up your project as you're trying to stitch it. And if you've ever tried to stitch a project that's just kind of laying down flat or whatever, you'll understand how invaluable this thing is. Now, as you're trying to thread things and pull it through, it's flopping all over the place. You've wanted another set of hands. This is another set of hands. If you're gonna be stitching a lot, get yourself a stitching pony. A wing divider. Wing dividers are one of those tools that you really don't need. Like a lot of the times, I can get the same essential functions from a wing divider as I get from like a ruler and an awl or something. They just make that process so much easier. You set your measurement and then you can use it to either like measure out holes on a belt by walking this thing down it. You can measure the distance from the edge by running this across the line. There's so many different uses for a wing divider that it's just one of those, it's a good tool to have. You don't absolutely need it, but if you get it, you're gonna find just so many uses for it. And a block of wax. This thing is used for everything. I use it to make my edges nice and sealed up and pretty looking. I use it to age leather, give it a nice aged look. You use it to wax your threads. It's super important you keep your threads waxed so they're not sliding out and they hold strong. You really can't go wrong with a nice block of wax. And my number one tool, and this is kind of cheating, it's not really a specialty item. You can use a lot of different things for it, but it is a hard surface to hammer on. Going to a lot of different leather craft stores or sites or whatever, they sell like big blocks of marble in order to do that with. I just, I bought a little marble tile and I glued it onto this board here. And that works great for me. But if you're cutting leather, stamping leather, doing any of that, using, you know, punching in some rivets or whatever, you absolutely need to have a sturdy, strong, heavy object to do that on. I used to just do a lot of my tooling right on my table here. And the wood would absorb so much of the blow that everything always kind of looked a little washed out and I had to work extra hard in order to make those really nice markings. Using a solid surface is like night and day. I just let, I let the hammer do the work or I just barely push in with my swivel knife. It makes a huge difference. You really do need a hard surface in order to be working properly. And again, it doesn't need to be expensive. This tile cost me, I think like $6 and this was a piece of wood I had laying around. And then to be extra useful, I just glued on a piece of leather here and that's where I sharpen my swivel knife. Sounds simple. It really will make a difference in your work if you have a nice, sturdy, hard surface to work from. And that's it. That's my preferred setup for leather. Everything else, I can kind of make shift if I really needed to. There's an argument to be made for like, you know, beveling stamps or whatever. But I've made do without those before just using the head of a nail that I rounded off. These things though, I haven't found a really clean way to efficiently replace these with other things. So I would definitely say, if you're going to spend some money on getting into this craft, for me, these are the things that I feel like I can't do without. I hope you found this helpful. If you did, why don't you give me some of that like it love and don't forget to subscribe so you know when I release new content. In the meantime though, keep leveling up, you.