Whether you’re scaling up your leather craft into a real business or you simply want an efficient way to make cuts and tooling for your leather goods, you will find the leather clicker press dies to be very helpful especially for your repetitive projects. So what are leather clicker dies?
What are Leather Clicker Press Dies?
Leather clicker press dies also known as cookie cutter dies are metal cutters used to cut various shapes and parts of leather items. With a well done leather clicker die you can ready the various parts of leather articles in a matter of minutes for assembly.
A leather clicker press may basically consist of a cutting blade mounted on some sort of wooden, plastic, felt, cork, fabric or paper board with an ejection material or space.
The clicker dies in other instances will consist of only a cutting blade that will not be mounted on any kind of board nor have any form of ejections spots. So it all depends on the die maker or how much you pay for your Dies.
The most common blade material for making leather clicker press dies is the steel rule. So you will find that most clicker Dies will also be known as steel rule dies due to the steel rule material used. The Steel rule material is a sheet of metal that has a hardened cutting edge.
The clicker press die can also be structured in a way for it to have the steel rule on the outside with hole punches or strip cutters on the inside parts of the die.
Leather clicker press dies can be obtained in a couple of ways;
- Die Making Companies (Custom Made)
- Standard Leather Clicker Dies
- DIY Dies
1. Custom Made Clicker Press Dies
The custom made clicker press dies are those that are tailor-made to suit a crafters design and measurements for a specific leather article to be made. For this to be done, the dimensions and design for specific dies will be pre-made and sent over to a clicker die maker.
Based on the type of design and quantity of dies, you will receive pricing and if the transaction is confirmed, you can expect to have your clicker dies ready in about one week. It’s quite a simple process to have it done by a trusted leather clicker die company.
Here are few renowned leather clicker die making companies you can get high quality dies from;
- Texas Custom Dies Company
- Weaver Leather
- Fremont Cutting Dies
- VVN Dies
Texas Custom Dies Company
Texas custom dies are renowned for their high quality leather clicker dies and sharpness. Over at Texas Custom Dies, you won’t be disappointed with the level of professionalism and care they take to ensure that you get the best leather clicker press dies and mallet dies.
Texas custom dies have a close relationship with Tandy leather because the owner, Kirk Kinnick, worked for Tandy manufacturing as a die maker and maintenance supervisor. And so because of this, he has an amazing wealth of experience with how to build a die that will hold up to the manufacturing process.
If you’re interested in doing business with them, you can visit their website here.
Weaver Leather Die Shop
When you order a custom made die from Weaver leather, their Die shop will make pre-sharpened steel clicker dies made to your exact specifications. You can trust Weaver leather’s quality with its many years of experience in the leather industry.
To ensure the highest levels of accuracy and symmetry, the Weaver leather shop draws patterns received on a CAD program and then prints the die on a paper with a special laser engraver.
With over 40 years in the leather craft, the Weaver leather brand is experienced and knows the qualities that make a great and dependable dies as against the weaknesses that makes dies unreliable.
This pool of knowledge and experience enables them to foresee any potential problems with the die you intend making and will take measures to ensure your dies yields the best results.
If you’re interested in contacting Weaver leather for some custom dies, you can check out their website over here!
Fremont Cutting Dies Inc.
Fremont Cutting Dies Inc has been making steel rule dies for more than 4 decades. Located in Northwest Ohio, Fremont Cutting Dies, Inc. manufacture a wide array of dies such as steel rule dies, forged dies, pre-hard or pre-sharp dies, wire EDM dies, specimen dies, match-metal dies, compound match-metal dies, etc.
Fremont Cutting Dies offer it’s services to a wide array of industries; food industry to appliance from packaging to pharmaceutical, automotive to medical, apparel to heavy-truck, thermo-form and more.
You can contact Fremont Cutting Dies over here to see how they might help with your cutting die needs.
VVN Cutting Die
The V.V.N. Die-cutting Company is an American company that prides itself as being one of the top die makers in the country. It was started in 1972 and until today has expanded tremendously throughout the United States.
What’s special about this company is that all of the custom die patterns you send over are crafted by their resident veteran die maker himself according to your exact specifications.
Vvn work with a lot of manufacturers across the United States. Their client’s list includes top fasion handbag designers, leather goods manufacters, motorcycle saddlebag manufacturers, weapon holster manufacturers, auto upholstery manufacturers, auto carpeting manufacturers, designer shoe manufacturers, handbag manufacturers, wallet makers, belt makers, and all kinds of hand punches.
Feel free to contact them via their websites for some awesome price deals.
Pros and Cons of Getting Custom Leather Dies
To almost every advantage there’s a disadvantage! Here are couple of advantages and disadvantages for getting custom made clicker press dies.
Pros:
- Everything is tailored according to your design, measurements and specifications
- No limitations on the shapes, forms, and designs
- No limitations on the quantity of dies for one design or product
- The materials for the Dies can be customized according to your preferences
- You get truly unique designs
- You can add more functionality to your dies to further ease the production process. For example, combining cutting dies and punching dies
Cons:
- You will have to design your dies or have someone do it for you
- It can take about a week to have it done
- Custom made Clicker Press Dies are generally more expensive
2. Standard Leather Clicker Dies
The standard leather clicker dies are the dies ready-made that you can buy and use on your clicker press on the go. They include ready-make dies like key fob Dies, wallets, straps, flaps, shape dies such heart, stars, etc.
Pros and Cons of Getting Standard Leather Clicker Dies
The standard leather clicker dies are great alternatives to the custom made dies but what are some of the additional benefits and disadvantages of the standard clicker press dies.
Pros:
- It can be bought in a single day
- Standard dies are generally less expensive
- They come in a wide variety of materials and designs to choose from
- Standard dies are a great source to get basic shapes, patterns, and design such as squares, animal shapes, etc
Cons:
- It may come with inferior material quality
- Designs, shapes, or patterns can be very common and will not result in unique leather work projects
3. DIY Dies: How do you make a cutting die?
You can make leather dies at home by mounting a steel rule onto a board that serves as a support for the cutting blade. The steel rule can be held in place on the board with screws/nails or by sinking the steel rule into the board.
While the steel rule is mostly used, the board however can be made from wood, plastic, flax, or any other suitable material.
Here’s a video on how to make a leather clicker die
Pros:
- The experience of being able to make your own clicker press dies is an absolute treasure to the various things and die customizations you can do
- You will save some money
- You can ensure the level of quality
- You will be able to make unlimited Dies for your projects
Cons:
- It’s possible you will make quite a few mistakes that will result material wastage especially when starting out
- Moulding intricate dies accurately may be the biggest challenge and may take some time and extra cost to set up the right forming tools
Conclusion
All in all, the Leather Clicker Press Dies are truly vital for leather crafters and serve really good purposes whether custom made or standard dies.
While I personally prefer getting custom made dies since leather work in itself is an art form and producing unique articles is of great importance, the standard dies also come in very handy depending on your level and the kind of project you will be working on.
Related Question
How do you sharpen clicker dies?
The leather clicker press die can be sharpened by running a die sharpener along the cutting edge of the blade. This can be done from time to time to retain the sharpness on the cutting edge of the blade.
