Learn What Tool Sets are Best for Leather Working

Video Transcript

"Now learning about the different kinds of tools. I've divided my tools up here into three categories. I have my knives and my single actions tools and my double action tools. These are all made out of steel so they're really strong. The knives; there's a couple of different types. This is a straight knife, here, kind of like a craft knife with sort of like a rubber handle to it but it has a double edge blade on it. Kind of simple type of knife, good for making straight cuts. When you're making curved cuts you can use what's called a swivel knife. It's called a swivel knife because it has this piece here that swivels kind of 360 degrees like this. You sort of hold it like this with your finger on top you can control the blade like this by twisting it around. Here's some different tips for that swivel knife. Here's more of a flat tipped one here, a broad tip, and this is, you see, more of a finer tip. So, these are interchangeable. Then we have two kinds of tools, what we call single action tools and double action tool. Really the difference is the single action tool is a tool that has a little pattern on it. Here's the flower, here's a little leaf design. Something like this is used for making basket weave designs, there's a few different examples here. What makes a single action tool is that really the tool is meant to make basically an impression of that design itself. Basically with one solid hard strike of the hammer and with a downward motion you're using that tool. Whereas a double action tool works more like a jackhammer does in the sense that you're doing a lot of sort of little taps. Every time you tap it there's a rebound or a recoil that happens from the leather. You can move along larger areas by using shaping tools like bevelers and pear shaders, and these tools. They're double action because they don't just move downward but they also have this little springing back up, this little recoil they do kind of like a jackhammer affect. We'll learn how to use all these kind of tools."