Weaver Little Wonder

There comes a time in the leatherworking journey when the tools purchased early on need to be upgraded. I've tried a lot of tools over the years, and I even put together a beginner's tool buying guide to help prevent some of the early mistakes we tend to make when starting a new hobby like this. Throughout my time working with leather, I've made plenty of mistakes; sometimes some big ones. One such mistake was buying a hand press of questionable origin, and the dies that came with it. It was fine; it did its job, and got me through several years of setting snaps and grommets. It was clunky and often difficult to use, but it beat the heck out of trying to set each and every fastener by hand. I recently upgraded my clunky hand-press to a Little Wonder by Weaver Leather. Holy smokes. This machine is a work of art, and it's an engineering masterpiece. 

I have a very small workshop, and really appreciate the tiny footprint of this press. Despite its small size, I still need to be very aware of where I put things in my shop, and need to have the ability to move things around. Instead of mounting the Little Wonder directly to my workbench, I mounted it to a board which can be clamped to my bench wherever I want it, or moved off the bench if I need the space for something else. So far, it's found a semi-permanent home at the end of my bench, and I'm pretty happy with it there for now. Not only is the footprint small, but the way it's engineered is brilliant. Most presses rely on a simple lever that gets pushed down directly onto a ram which is aft of the fulcrum, and drives the dies together to set the fasteners. The lever action is on the opposite side from the throat of the press where all the work is done, and this makes it really awkward for attempting to mount it anywhere. Either you're reaching over the machine, or rotating the entire thing sideways. Neither of these options are intuitive or maximize available leverage, and neither make the machine ideal for mounting anywhere permanently. Instead, the Little Wonder has a system that cleverly utilizes a cam and a very long lever arm for pressing. A cam transforms rotary motion into linear motion, and when combined with the long arm it’s attached to, it delivers a lot of power. The way it's oriented makes the long arm pull down on the same side of the machine as the throat, making it easy to install almost anywhere. Once mounted, the lever pulls forward, making the control arm and the fastening happen right in front me. On my old machine, the fastening and the lever were on opposite sides which as it turns out, is pretty awkward. The Little Wonder has a height adjustment wheel that allows you to easily dial-in the movement of the ram that's just right for the thickness of the leather you're working with, and it sets fasteners perfectly and quickly, over and over. The repeatability factor with this press makes it such a massive time saver because it only requires being adjusted once, and will provide consistency and perfect results without having to think about it. When I first used the Little Wonder to set an eyelet, my first thought was "did it work?" because it was so smooth and literally effortless, and I couldn't even feel the familiar thud or strain that I remembered from my old press. And holy cow! Did I mention that it's fast?! 

There are lots of dies to choose from with the Little Wonder, and it comes with a comprehensive instruction manual that explains how to set the machine up, and even goes into detail about the correct and incorrect ways to use each fastener. Weaver clearly put a lot of time and effort into writing the instruction manual and it shows, as it's easily the best manual I've seen for any piece of leatherworking equipment. The dies are also really fantastic. They're incredibly precise, clearly very well made, and they can be swapped out quickly and locked in place securely. The first press I bought years ago came in a box that might as well have said "good luck!" Whereas, the Little Wonder is made for leathercrafters, and is designed for our success. If any issues do arise, Weaver is available to answer questions, and they stand behind their gear with a guarantee. My only gripe about the Little Wonder is that it comes with a default die for hollow splash rivets which is something I don’t use in my work. It would be great to have the option to choose the die that comes with the machine when you buy it instead of being forced to pay for one you might not use. Most people are buying this machine at first with a specific task in mind, and it's a pretty big investment, so having to plunk down another $50+ on a set of dies on top of it, probably won’t make most people very happy. Overall, this is by far one of the best pieces of gear in my shop, and I know it will provide a lifetime of service. It's 100% worth the higher price tag than the standard hand presses out there, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have bought this from the start.