The most surprising detail in this whole build is that the tool solving the maker's toughest snap problem is an ordinary Phillips head screwdriver. The maker, who describes themselves as an intermediate leather crafter, says snaps were the hardest part of the craft even after owning every usual setting tool and weighing a snap press purchase. A light mallet tap on a screwdriver handle is what finally ended the run of failed and ugly settings. The method itself is simple. The snap post goes through a pre-punched hole in the leather, the mating piece sits over it, and the screwdriver tip is inserted into the hollow post. A light tap on the handle pre-flares the tubular post into four quadrants. Then the standard knurled setter rod goes over the flared post on the anvil, and a strike with the mallet crimps it down smoothly and centered. The maker set a second snap on scrap strips the same way and joined the mating snaps to confirm the fit. What stands out just as much is the road to this fix. Across many snap sizes, posts that ran slightly too long were the main struggle. Trimming meant trying a diamond sharpening stone, a 3D printed rig to hold a saw blade, and a rotary tool with a cut-off blade, and the maker found all that trimming annoying and slow when setting many snaps. The open question for me is whether the four-quadrant flare removes the need for those trimming chores entirely, since the maker reports no failed or ugly snaps after adopting the tip but does not say whether the long posts stopped being a problem.
Project by Makers Leather Supply. Watch it on their YouTube channel: