Just finished a knife sheath for my wife. With bloodied and sore fingers, I wish I had watched this video before I started. Thanks

I use the chisel to make fairly deep holes. Then I take the absolutely skinniest drill bit and drill through. That way it doesn’t change the appearance of the topside stitch holes. I take my stitching awl and push it in the backside. Thanks for making this video!

Great video!

I recently began Leatherworking, and came across this problem with my 1st knife sheath. I was using 4mm thick 10oz leather like yourself. After 2 ruined attempts, I decided to try something nobody else I have seen attempted. I have a laser machine that I'm fluent in its use. In short, I use the laser to cut out the Front, Welt, & Back of the sheath. After some trial & error using scrap, I quickly determined the proper speed & power of the laser to make 1.0 mm, 1.2 mm & 1.5 mm clean holes in the leather. The stitch line (holes) are cut first, then the outline of all 3 pieces are cut using standard 1/8" gap. Beacuse the laser is precision, all the pieces and corresponding stitch holes line up, exactly. After glue up and stitching, the ony thing left is a quick sand to remove the burnt edges. The pattern is pretty quick to make as well. After tracing the blade on plain paper, it is scanned using a flatbed scanner. That outline is brought into Corel Draw, turned into a vector outline, which is then imported into lightburn (laser cutter software). The end result is a pretty much perfect sheath that looks as though an automated machine made it. No more wasted leather, no more human error during the critical cut/punch phase of the build.

I like to use a #23 or 24 sewing machine needle running in my drill press. I use harness needles for the sewing.

nice idea to punch holes in heavy leather , If you add a guide will be more easy , Thank you very much

Watching this I noticed that the needle bends slightly. Have you considered using a round awl blade instead? They’re a bit more robust.

you should try to not leave so much of needle left out of chuck. chuck it up just enough were needle passes slightly pass thicknes of leather and you want have so much flex in your needle.