Thursday 2 February 2012

Old Leather Working Tool

I recently came across this tool and had absolutely no idea what its purpose was.  No-one else that I asked seemed to know either. After contacting our wonderful Melbourne Museum we were delighted to find out the identity of the tool. To quote the museum... It is a ‘glazing iron’ used in leatherworking and is described as follows:
These apparatuses were used hot after applying wax, inks, special polishes or heel balls to give the leather surface lustre, particularly within the soles and heels. This particular tool bears the tool manufacturers trade mark "ALS / Barnsley/ Sheffield / England". George Barnsley and Sons produced shoemakers' tools in Sheffield, England (1835-1990)


2 comments:

dorothypandorasbox said...

Hi Sue,
for once I am allowed to comment on here! I love old tools. At first I thought this looked like one I had used in bookbinding. I was making lines on the leather binding of a book though.

mycamerandme365 said...

This may well be similar to the one you used. The identity of this tool had us stumped for a long time.