Alternative source for a leather punch?

[Father Bill]

Good day all!

For years, I had a marvellous leather punch which made four evenly-spaced round holes. When we moved back to the city, I couldn't find it and purchased the tool shown in the picture from Tandy.

Leather punch 2014-06-11 001.jpg

Sadly, it has proven most unsatisfactory - after some really light use, it is now so dull that it won't even punch 3 oz leather. Further, the holes are a tad smaller than my old wonderful tool used to make.

Now Tandy have shown absolute integrity and are shipping me a new one with no argument whatever so it's hard to grepse, but of course it's the same tool and I fear that it will shortly prove useless as the other one.

Can you leatherworkers point me to another source where I might have better luck?

Bill+

[Leatherneck Donald]

I got a larger center punch from Sears and put it on the grinding wheel to square up the punch, and use that for making stitch holes. it's only one hole at a time, but makes a nice one

[artificer]

Hey Padre- Part of the issue may be Tandy's rather shoddy metal quality.

You might be able to find the punch heads from a different source, and select a larger size of punch to boot.

Check HERE to see if they have what you need.

ith:

[Father Bill]

Thanks a million, Scott; I'll keep that one for a follow up in the very near future!

[GrainReaper]

I Cryo treat all my edged tools, helps amazingly in the department of holding an edge, I have cheap kitchen knives that are insanely sharp and since treating stay that way for quite a long time

[KevinKeith]

I Cryo treat all my edged tools

Cryo-treating metal is a method employed to remove retained austenite and untempered martensite from the microstructure. It doesn't actually remove it - it transforms it to a more stable, less brittle form. Just a little tip from your friendly neighborhood heat-treater! We usually do that anywhere from -150*F to -300*F but in this case, if you've access to a deep freeze, that should work well enough.