Leather workers and cordwainers, give us your awl...

[Brokennock]

So, talk to me about awls. Best way to maintain profile while sharpening? Any tricks to keeping them sharp?
I have the better of the Tandy awls and like it mostly.
I would like an awl that is either thinner overall, or, that takes longer to taper to full width. Thus allowing a smaller hole.
What are your favorite awls? Source for a greater variety?

Thanks,
Dave

[alyce-james]

Brokennock; I have purchased a good collection of awls from E-bay. I like the awls that leave a hole small enlongated over the round holes. Have a good day. AJ.

[James Rogers]

I use diamond stones to shape and then strop with a basic grit and finally semichrome. Wet/dry paper on glass in lieu of the diamonds also works.
You probably need the smallest size available. Most with experience use the same awl for multiple sized holes but vary with the depth. Beginners can achieve that with leather washers on the blade or by just burrowing most of the blade in the handle. The smallest osborne is fairly good metal.
The best of current products are the ones being currently produced by Barnsley of England. There are a couple US leather tool guys selling them already sharpened . Bob Douglas has one in that category but they are pricey. IMO it's better to buy them unsharpened and experiment on shaping and stropping.
Think bayonet shape for your stitching awl.
A round awl (stabbing awl) is good for stitching back thru your stitch line in reverse to finish off

[Mike from OK]

How fortuitous that this post came up as I was thinks my of making a similar post...

I have the Tandy awl, the lower end one. It isn't very good. I managed to sharpen and polish it enough for it to be serviceable... But my major complaint is that it's just too big for most of my work. It truly seems to be intended for heavy stitching on heavy goods.

I suppose I could grind, sharpen, and polish it down to a more usable size but I would rather spend a little money and have something that I don't have to build from scratch.

My other option is to make my own... I have a handful of German made blades from an old industrial Wagner metal cutting circular saw. I have played around with cutting out pieces and working them down to make my own awl. They're HSS though, so I'm not sure how good my end product would be.

I will check out the products James Rogers noted... However, it seems the Douglas awls are all as big or bigger than the one I am currently using.

Mike

[James Rogers]

For this side of the pond and new I would suggest a #42 osborne awl.

When I first started out in leather I used to make my awls from concrete nails. It was the first thing I found to try to modify but they stayed sharp for me.

[Mike from OK]

After reading Brokennock's post I swung by Tandy on my way to work. I checked out their Craftool Pro awl and found it to be much smaller than the one I'm using now. I spent the money and purchased it. It will have to be sharpener/polished but it looks like it may serve me until I can get my hands on something else.

Thank you "awl" for your help.

Mike

[Brokennock]

Thank you James Roger's. That is a lot of very useful info.

[thecapgunkid]

You probably have all the advice you can handle in this post so far.  The key issues revolve around a couple of ideas you stated....diamond shaped shank and fine, long taper.  When done grinding, polish it.  When not in use, your taper should be fine enough that you are nervous about the tip breaking so sink it in a cork and don't leave the awl lying about.

Some bloke named The Capgun Kid wrote a post a while ago on this sort of stuff.  Everything in it was learned from someone else...

[Mike from OK]

The size difference... It makes a nice hole as is, but I will work on making it better.




And Capgun, I remembered what you said!  It was a handy idea... And gave my wife an excuse to buy more vino.





I'll definitely upgrade. But this was a step in the right direction and will let me keep going until I can upgrade.

Mike

[Brokennock]

You probably have all the advice you can handle in this post so far.  The key issues revolve around a couple of ideas you stated....diamond shaped shank and fine, long taper.  When done grinding, polish it.  When not in use, your taper should be fine enough that you are nervous about the tip breaking so sink it in a cork and don't leave the awl lying about.

Some bloke named The Capgun Kid wrote a post a while ago on this sort of stuff.  Everything in it was learned from someone else...

Yes, I copied and pasted your, "every man a cobbler," posts to word documents and saved them.