I agree with the above comments about quality. I'm a leatherworker of some three decades, once made leather bondage gear commercially, and for quite a while had some renown for my DIY BDSM leatherworking (Sartan's Working With Leather, and BDSM Workshop) site and CDROM. In the US, Tandy Leather Factory (a merger of Tandy Leather and The Leather Factory) remains pretty available as physical stores and are of course on the net, and will have tools of much higher quality. You need a small fraction of the tool pile here:
- Cutting tools: strap cutter, roller cutter, self-healing mat, straightedge and square; get extra blades for everything
- Punching tools: plastic or rawhide headed mallet, hole punch set (never use the "pliers" style), slot hole punches if you want to use locking buckles
- Finishing tools: beveler, creaser, slicker/burnisher
- Attaching tools: mini anvil and rivet setter
- Stuff: rivets, gum tragacanth, edge finish, maybe a little dye, daubers
If you get into snaps, grommets, and so forth, you'll end up wanting tools specific to the application of each size. Hand sewing heavier leathers requires multi-prong punches.
If anyone is interested in getting into leatherworking, send me an email at
saroftreve@aol.com and I'll see if I can find a soft copy of my CDROM content to send you. It's an excellent beginner's guide, however low-budget
Plans for a pretty wide range of leather bondage gear in different styles.