Advanced leather goods making guide: needlework, knives, chopping, additives, leather materials

Advanced Leather Goods Making Guide: Needlework and Thread Making Handmade Leather Goods, the Most Basic Basic Skills It is sewing. For a long time, many friends have focused on the order of stitching and the positional relationship between the needle tip and the cut hole. But just knowing these is not enough for making a high-end leather goods. In fact, if you want to make excellent works, both needle use and thread selection require careful study. 1. Needles Let’s take a look at the classification of needles. Needles for leather goods are divided into two categories: pointed needles and blunt needles. In addition to these two categories, there are also curved needles specially used for sewing. Each type of needle has a different size, the material used, and the size of the needle eye. Often there are differences.

First start with the most basic eye of a needle Speaking of which, the leather thread needle part is not included here. There are two types of needle holes for threading, oval needle holes and elongated needle holes, which are suitable for different wire materials. The oval needle hole is suitable for nylon thread, because the fixing method of nylon thread is to pass the thread through the needle hole and then use the needle tip to pass through the thread body multiple times to fix it. When sewing, the thread is required to shift as little as possible in the needle hole, so that It will not loosen the braided structure of the thread body. The oval needlehole allows the thread to move as little as possible during sewing, effectively increasing the distance that can be sewn at one time. The long pinhole is suitable for linen thread. Since the material of flax thread is plant fiber, its strength is not as good as nylon. If a needle with an oval pinhole is used, the thread will be difficult to move in the needle hole, which will cause a certain section of the fiber to continuously rub against the needle body. As a result, the thread sometimes breaks prematurely. At this time, using a long needle hole can allow the thread to slide to a certain extent when pulling the suture by hand, allowing more locations to receive friction evenly, and the thread will be less likely to be broken. Generally speaking, the stronger the thread, the smaller the needle hole you should use.

Then there is the needle length selection. Usually this is not within the consideration range of leather goods manufacturers. The average persons concept is that the thicker the leather, the longer the needle should be used. In fact, this concept is somewhat wrong. Let’s look at some pictures first.

These pictures are from France and Japan respectively , is a foreign thimble method for sewing leather goods. Different from the Chinese thimble method, the thimble position is not using the side of the finger, but the inside of the finger or the side of the palm. With this way of ejecting the needle, when the needle is pushed out, the position where the needle tail hits is the least vulnerable part of the hand, reducing the possibility of injury. For this reason, the selection of needle length is actually determined by the size of the users hand. The optimal length of the needle is when the needle tail is pressed against the thimble, the thumb and index finger hold the needle body, and after penetrating the leather, The needle length is appropriate when the remaining length of the needle tip is approximately 1.5 cm. However, since most people in China are already accustomed to the long-used thimble method, there is no need to force a change here. Generally speaking, it is more appropriate to use a needle that is proportional to the size of your hand. When operating with the Chinese thimble method, if the thimble is worn on the middle finger, it is more convenient to apply force when the needle exposed by the thumb and index finger is half the length of the needle. Next comes the choice of needle strength. Generally speaking, leather needles come in two strengths. One is slightly softer and can be bent by hand, while the other is more rigid and difficult to bend. The steel strength of domestic leather needles and Japanese leather needles is generally higher, and the needle body is hard, which is easier to use when sewing hard leather materials. However, when sewing soft leather materials, the lack of elasticity of the needle body does not align with the sutures. It is easy to pierce the leather surface when pinhole is accurate. The needle steel made in France is slightly softer and is less likely to damage the leather surface when sewing soft leather. Therefore, when sewing, leather goods needles from different origins should be selected according to different leather materials. The most famous needle brand is JOHN JAMES, which is used by many big brands including Hermès. The picture shows a needle box produced by JOHN JAMES in 1870.

In addition, when selecting the sewing needle There is also the issue of tip shape to consider. First, let’s take a look at the various needle tip shapes. Both domestic and Japanese needle points are pointed in a smooth arc, and the needle point is an obtuse angle of 60 degrees. The French needlepoint is tapered in a straight line, and the contour line near the needlepoint is bent again. The needlepoint angle reaches an obtuse angle of 80 degrees and forms a platform shape. The photo of a single needle in the picture shows the tip shape of domestic and Japanese needles, and the photo of three needles shows the tip shape of wooden needles, steel needles and ceramic needles made in France.

These two needle tip shapes They are formed due to the different leather materials corresponding to each use. Domestic handmade leather goods and Japanese handmade leather goods mainly use vegetable-tanned leather, which is hard leather. The leather will not produce much resistance when the needle passes through the thread hole. As long as the needle tip can accurately enter the chopping hole, it can be sewn smoothly. Therefore, the needle tip cross-sectional area is smaller. In addition, vegetable tanned leather is easy to deform, and the needle body that is pointed in an arc can produce less leather deformation than other tapering methods. The French-made needles are mainly used for soft leather. The European-style six-edge beheading holes are very small, and the chrome-tanned leather has more fibers, which will produce greater resistance to the needle body. Therefore, the French-style leather needles adopt a straight-line approach to reduce resistance. It also increases the angle of the needle tip to prevent accidental puncture of the leather surface during sewing. French hard-leather needles abandon safety and add a sharp-angled needle tip to the straight-line point to increase the penetrating power and accuracy of the needle tip. The picture below shows the French-made John James foal sewing needle. ?

2. Threads also have a decisive influence on a work. Common threads include nylon thread and waxed linen thread. , line types include flat and round, and commonly used line diameters are 0.65, 0.55, and 0.45. Nylon thread fibers are strong and have great resistance to strong pulling. They have a longer lifespan than linen threads and the color is not easy to fall off. The disadvantages are Afraid of high temperatures, the thread needs to be sintered when taking up the thread. In addition, since it is machine-made, once local fiber breaks, the strength of the entire thread will be affected. Therefore, it is generally used on leather goods for daily use. In addition, on large leather goods due to nylon Due to the high durability of the thread, there are still many users. For high-end leather goods, due to possible maintenance considerations, nylon thread is used less.

The fiber strength of flax thread is not as good as that of nylon thread, but the constituent fibers are different from nylon thread. They are not one fiber from beginning to end. In addition, when taking up the thread, glue is used to collect the thread end into the thread hole, so it is easier to repair if there is a local breakage problem. In addition, because it is a natural fiber, the smoothness of the thread will gradually increase as the use time increases.

In terms of line type selection, Most leather goods use round threads, but leather goods that require durability need to choose flat threads, because flat threads are very difficult to wear when matched with the grooves on the leather surface. Round threads are mainly used in various business and leisure bags On the top, its bulging lines can provide a little three-dimensionality to the edges of the work.

When it comes to the choice of online thickness, it is usually based on the size of the work. However, special cases are various vegetable tanned leather and crazy horse leather works. Such leather works are naturally It has a rough feeling, so you should try to use thicker threads in production.

Try to use Au Chinois French linen thread as the brand of thread. Although it is expensive, the thread is tightly twisted and does not show wax. Loose strands can be used as much as possible when making high-end leather goods. Among the affordable domestic threads, Yules nylon thread has good quality, bright colors, many colors, thin and strong. The disadvantage is that it is slightly thinner and has a weaker three-dimensional effect. Below This old foreign man wearing Chinese clothes is the advertising image of Au Chinois. This clothes is to commemorate China, the origin of the twisting technology used by this brand. At the earliest, these twine threads were called "Chinese threads". 300 years ago, this Linen thread was introduced to France and was regarded as a treasure by the local fashion industry, gradually developing into todays legal linen thread.

Leather goods making guide