Setting Snaps Can Make You Cuss

Snap placement is one of those necessary chores many leather-crafters have come to dread. Bent posts, misaligned caps, squished parts - the list of ways a snap can go wrong is extensive.
I've received a few requests to do a tutorial video on snap-setting, so I did one with my methods for the two most-used snaps in leather-crafting, the heavy-duty Line 24 snaps and the lighter-duty Segma snaps.
At 3 1/2 minutes, the download was too big for the Blogger system, but I've posted it to YouTube. Here's the link -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N6ieWtuMa8
Here is a summary of what it covers:
Part of the difficulty arises from the tools that many of us use.
The mallet-driven setters are economical but often not worth the savings, particularly when setting the Line 24 snaps.
If you set a lot of these snaps, or wish you could, I strongly recommend an investment in a snap-setting tool. There are a few on the market, but my favorite is the Pres-n-Snap.
Insanely, this tool is not available through the normal Leather-Crafting suppliers. You can, however, find it online if you do a search with the name spelled as above or through upholstery-tool outlets. Mine came with the parts for setting snaps and grommets for about $150.00. It works well with the Tandy Line 24 snaps and, in my opinion, was worth every penny.
For the Segma snaps, the drive-tools are adequate. They can be tricky nonetheless. My two main bits of advice are:
1) Focus your attention on the tool rather than the mallet, the project or your hand. Keeping this tool aligned vertically is critical.
2) Do not over-set the snap. Two or three firm strikes of the mallet should be sufficient. Over-setting will ruin the snap.
I hope this information is helpful!

Home-Made Stamping Tools

Like anyone whose been plying their craft for multiple decades, I've built up an impressive set of tools.
In the way of most working-class artisans, it was put together one tool at a time. My most lusted-after items in those long-ago early years were the stamping tools that are so critical to what I do. The half-dozen that I started with were enough, but only barely!
It was Dad that suggested that I could make my own with heavy nails and his bench grinder. An afternoon in his workshop more than doubled my stamp supply; better still, they were unique and kind of funky, different from anything commercially available.
The first step, of course, is to remove the point from the tip to fashion a strike-end.
Then work at the edges and the surface of the nail-head to create your desired imprint shape.
I did a couple with the large spikes, but they really chewed up Dad's grinding wheel. So I went to a smaller size, which worked well. I also did one with a cement nail - that one is a favorite because I can reverse it and use the strike-end to make a diamond mark.
With just a few cents worth of nails (and another few dollars to replace the grinding wheel that I pretty much wore away) I created a handful of stamping tools that I still use to this day.
All of these tooling examples were made with at least one of these stamps. The black wristband design at the bottom is entirely made of homemade tools.


The message, of course, is that you needn't be limited by convention. I consider this just further proof that the old adage about necessity and invention holds true!