...Otherwise they would have known that the Grail should have been a pair of pliers! That's right I said pliers or Osborn punches or good scissors or a simple piece of plastic with holes in it! Tools, people, tools!
I am one of several contract laborers that helps fill orders for Kendall Custom Braiding & Design and the biggest adventure I have been on involves good tools. My most valuable, pun intended, lesson has been that expensive tools generally means, "I will break the second you look at me!"
My adventure began with pliers and I was naive enough to think that with access to seemingly hundreds of hardware stores and the World Wide Web as well as my awesomeness at bargain shopping; would have me rolling in amazing tools and at the top of the game....
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Sorry about the delay I had to stop a minute since it is impossible to type on a keyboard when you are rolling on the floor laughing hysterically at yourself. Moving along...
So pliers are easy to find, even needle nose pliers and as I entered my local hardware store I was walking with confidence. I felt on top of the world as I bought my first tool box and the smallest tipped needle nose pliers I could find. I was a woman with a mission in "Man's Land" and I was breaking the sterotypical boundaries of tool buying. I didn't need my husband to do it, I didn't even ask for help. I mean really, I as a woman don't like asking questions in three major places...hardware stores, gun shops and at the auto mechanics. Are you feeling me ladies? I paid for my purchases and walked out of the store with a bit of a swagger and climbed into my Jeep Grand Cherokee and began my drive home, jamming out to music and feeling very VERY cool. I walked into my home and proudly showed my family my new purchases...this was my first mistake because I never lived it down. But I am getting ahead of myself...
I sat down in my newly created workspace and began proudly putting all my tools in the tool box I had just bought and then sat down to work on my first project at home. I got my leather lace, my pliers and moved to put my pliers through the freshly punched holes...and failed. That's right they were too big. I sat there and stared already visualizing the reaction to my announcement that the pliers wouldn't work. I had to go borrow a pair from the shop; my swagger turned to a slouch, my confidence turned to humiliation but I like to look at the bright side...the tool box was still awesome.
To save other people the humiliation of what I went through, here are a few tips for you out there in leather crafting land...if you already know these please don't tell me...I do need a shred of pride you know.
Tip One: You didn't cut the leather wrong, you have to create an illusion of square, not a reality.
Tip Two: $25.00 heavy-duty leather punches will not punch through 4 layers of leather; however the $9.99 ones will cut through 7 layers.
Tip Three: Meat Scissors work way better than leather shears.
Tip Four: Everything is a potential tool.
Tip Five: The perfect tool will be discontinued the second you find it. There is only one Excaliber.
I kept those pliers, I even use them because I have learned that the trick to this occupation is improvisation. I did what any humiliated wife would do...I waited 6 months and then I took a deep breath and asked my husband to fix it. He did...with a metal grinder and they are actually my favorite pliers with the exception of Amber's pliers which we can't find ANYWHERE (Excaliber!!!). They are my Grail; and the quest is exhausting.
Sam
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