upholstery tacks and leather work diy

[hobowonkanobe]

been looking for some info on how to fold or bend the tacks points so as to not shred myself on the finished project.
Believe it or not, I may have found a topic w no coverage on youtube.

any tips?

 

[Black Hand]

First of all, don't use commercially available upholstery tacks, rather HC/PC brass tacks purchased from a reputable source.

Second, you can anneal the steel tack portion with a torch to soften the steel shank.

Third, clip and peen or turn the tip with pliers/bend over a steel rod and tap into the leather.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Those are good ideas.

One of the questions is, what is the item, and would it have been "tacked" or was it made with square nails, and the folks who looked at the piece to make a reproduction simply saw the square heads, and assumed they used tacks?

I ask, as another drawback from the use of modern tacks..., is they act as a wedge, like a splitting wedge on a log, and often crack things like the block on an ammo box, when tapped into place. More so on pine than on hardwood, but they will sometimes split hardwood. :shocked2: One of my lads also found out that if the tips protrude into the cartridge space in the ammo box, they snag on the paper cartridge and tear them open when removed for loading. :shake:

What we did for cartridge boxes and for putting a leather cover over a wooden chest, is we took a very small drill bit..., 3/32 I think..., and drilled holes in the wood where the tacks would go. Then we used a bench grinder, and held the tacks with a vice-grip, and removed a little bit of the tip. Then the tacks were used, and since the holes were pre-drilled, BUT the holes were smaller than the diameter of the tack shank, the tacks like square nails, grabbed onto the side of the holes without forcing too much of the wood out of the way, BUT didn't protrude beyond the wood.

The trick is..., getting the right size hole so that the sides of the tack shank hold, but not so small that the tack acts like the wedge I mentioned earlier. :wink: So you'll have to experiment with the tacks and different sized drill bits.

LD

 

[LRB]

Where can HC brass tacks be found now? I had a source listed, but it is no longer valid. Last I read, they were only being made in England.

 

[cositrike]

Wick.
Seen some on EBay recently. Your side of the big pond.
Regards
Simon

 

[hobowonkanobe]

hope this works, I'm attempting to post a link of what inspired my post here...
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/567875834247635629/

 

[Black Hand]

Where can HC brass tacks be found now? I had a source listed, but it is no longer valid. Last I read, they were only being made in England.

Wick,
I believe I had a link saved some time ago, but may have been in the computer that crashed. That said, the steel-shanked tacks that are available appear to replicate the appearance of period tacks (at least, the part visible after mounting), though their construction may not be completely correct. Their 2-part construction can be a disadvantage in that the steel shank sometimes comes loose from the brass head. Commercially-available upholstery tacks look little like the ones usually seen on period pieces.
Albert

 

[Black Hand]

hope this works, I'm attempting to post a link of what inspired my post here...
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/567875834247635629/[/quote]
That looks like a piece made by Chuck Burrows (a forum member who recently died).

I've used the clip and peen method on projects and it works. Just don't leave too much of shank behind before peening, as it tends to bend and can distort your piece.

 

[Black Hand]

http://indiani.cz/articles/printart.php?id=2

 

[hobowonkanobe]

thanks, for both pcs of info. It was a random (aka unaccredited) pic on pinterest,

 

[Black Hand]

In the drop-down information, it mentions the Wild Rose Trading Company, which was Mr. Burrows' company. Also, his work is distinctive (at least to me).

 

[nhmoose]

http://londonderry-brasses.com/upholst.html

Try here?

Or: http://www.crazycrow.com/silver-and-brass-nails-and-tacks

 

[Black Hand]

http://www.crazycrow.com/silver-and-brass-nails-and-tacks

My major concern with these tacks is the following wording:
"Available in brass, antique and antique silver finishes." (The only exception being the solid brass nails)
This suggests to me the tacks are plated rather than solid brass (etc.). I've seen items like this before and the plating is quite thin, wearing away and exposing the underlying base metal (or the copper coating used prior to plating).

 

[Tinker2]

Some of the Indian things I have seen were made with brass garment tacks like Tandy sells





William Alexander

 

[crockett]

I think I used to buy them from the Trunkshoppe or some similar name but in checking the net- don't seem to be around. Crazy Crow has all brass but the shanks are round and the domes not right.

 

[crockett]

There were two ways to install the tacks. The first was to bend the tip 90 degrees. Then bend farther down the shank and also 90 degrees. This second bend therefore drives the tip into the sheath so it doesn't snag on your clothes. The steel shanks are hard to bend and not pc- you are better off using harness rivets. Apparantly a lot of old sheaths and belts were made by saddle makers that had harness rivets- they are pc.
The second method was to peen hammer the tip of the shank. You need to trim the shank so just a little protrudes from the leather and peen it into a mushroom dome.
Since few orginals remain- there is some speculation but my feeling is the mountain men used the first method- it is the method described by Hanson (museum of the fur trade). The dome or peen hammered second method- it doesn't hold the tack as securely. It is seen on a lot of NDN sheaths made in the 1870's and later. These NDN examples often have multiple rows of tacks whereas the mountain men had a single row. The NDN 1870's sheaths also have a lot of missing tacks.
The harness rivets are sold at Tandy Leather. You can also use lead (plumbing type) and mushroom the ends but the lead is noticably heavy.
As stated- Chuck was the expert on tacks. There were many sizes and shapes at the type but now we have very high domes and I think originally the domes were lower and- as stated- the shanks were originally square brass.
And "one more thing"...This peen hammering. On a sheath of soft leather there is no support for the shank. As you hammer you can just bend the whole shank over rather than mushroom the head. The NDN sheaths were often rawhide- stiff as a board of wood so the shank was supported and you could mushroom the head. I've tried it both ways and IMHO the rawhide is needed if you want to peen hammer.

 

[rijerolmon]

Check out the web site for Brettuns Village Trunk Shop and Brettuns Leather. Good folks to do business with and free shipping. They post a tutorial for "clinch nails", this is the same procedure for tacks.

 

[BrownBear]

I've used the clip and peen method on projects and it works. Just don't leave too much of shank behind before peening, as it tends to bend and can distort your piece.

Same here. Learned it shoeing horses, but in that case you file the clipped ends more than peen them, depending on the hoof and uses.

 

[crockett]

One point on this peening and that is the historical correctness aspect. It appears on NDN sheaths dated in the 1870's and later but I don't know how early the method was used and whether it is purely an NDN method or whether those of European background (mountain men) used it as well. Hanson at the Museum of the Fur Trade only mentions the clinch or bent over tip method. As I said, so few originals remain that it is a hard area to know for certain.
Chuck (Wild Rose) made leather goods for an expanded era, both Pre-1840 and "Cowboy" era so don't read more into things than they appear. I emailed Chuck back and forth a few times and I always got the impression that he favored harness rivets for the mountain man era. These harness rivets (Tandy) are available and easy to install and pc. The tacks are pc as well IF you can find any all brass, square shank tacks with the proper dome shape.
The art work of Miller, et al- the "dots" of some sort of tack/rivet are shown but exactly what they were is very hard to tell (at least for me).