Re-profiling an awl blade

As many of you know, I recently refurbished a gorgeous yet highly rusted #6 Joseph Dixon pricking iron - a REAL pricking iron I might add.

Most of what you see today, Amy Roke, KS Blade Punch, Wuta et all, are 'European style' stitching irons, but they can be used as a pricking iron with a light tap. A true pricking iron on the other hand only marks the leather to guide the awl as the prongs taper so fast that punching through anything more than 1mm of leather will quickly ruin it.

That being said, the Dixon iron has 3mm wide teeth! 😁 This poses a problem as most awls don't quite hit 3mm width without a heavy taper and the whole point of a large pricking iron is to stitch some thick ass leather!

So without a straight tapered awl, that leaves rear stitches in thick leather lacking the traditional angled look that is so sought after.

Enter China:

So I found this puppy on eBay, and for £8.80, it's the bargain of the century. Ebony handle with 3mm high speed steel blade? Sold!

A record 8 days later, it turned up from China.

The good: Great packaging here as you can see, I've never received an awl in appropriate packaging before, so I was glad to see that Beaver Leathercraft (lol) know what's up.

The bad: Unfortunately, the blade didn't even protrude 15mm from the ferrule. This is a little confusing as a blade of this size is best suited to large leather goods needing some length.

The ugly: While the ferrule was advertised as brass, it clearly wasn't. What I got was gold coloured anodised aluminium. Strange, as I can't imagine how lathe turning, bead blasting and anodising aluminium is much cheaper than just turning a brass blank. I imagine this is done as they think people don't like a brass patina? Who knows, prepare to be sanded and polished!

Removing the blade.

I have found that the easiest way to remove a blade is to pinch it in a vice between some hard wood pieces and heat the exposed blade with a soldering iron. I also keep rearward tension on the haft/handle. As soon as the adhesive degrades from the heat, the haft pops off without any more unnecessary heat being added to ruin the temper in the steel (soften it).

Profiling.

Once out, it was time to insert the blade into some mole grips for shaping/sharpening. This is definitely a hard steel as there was no scratches left on the blade from the grips, but the mole grips on the other hand..

I started by removing the top and bottom corners of the of the diamond blade with a diamond disk chucked into a Dremel (blue marker helps to see where metal is relieved). This removes material fast, so go slow (25000rpm or less) and remove frequently to reduce heat build up.

Before:

After:

After this it was simply a matter of finishing each of the (now 6!) facets on the 1000 and 2000 diamond plate and lastly a polishing block.

I'm going with a flattened hexagon shape here vs the regular oval shape, I feel that this maintains more stiffness whilst reducing the gaping hole effect left by a true diamond shape awl blade - fine if you're using self healing 'pure' chrome tan, not so much in vegtan.

If you're wondering why I've left the sharp point in here, that's because this blade has a fast taper which will hit the sides of the prick mark before the point bites into the leather and has a chance to change course if not centred correctly. Also, the sharp edge has been removed along the straight sides, so the only area with a cutting edge is where it tapers to the point.

Result (only crappy phone pics today..):

I have to say, I'm liking the satin polished aluminium ferrule!

Awl... pimped!

Phil