A wooden stitching pony clamped to a workbench beside tall saddler's clams and a stool in a leather workshop.
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Stitching Pony or Clamp

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis

A third hand made of wood. The only question is how you want to sit with it.

A stitching pony, a saddler’s clam and a stitching horse all do the same plain job, they grip the leather along the seam so both of your hands are free for two needles, and the difference between them is mostly where your body ends up while you sew for an hour, two hours, a whole evening. That matters more than the tool’s price. A saddle stitch done well is slow work done the same way hundreds of times in a row, and whatever holds the leather is holding you in one position for every one of those stitches. Pick the wrong one and your back tells you by the second seam.

Video: Laser Cut Stitching Pony!? (and pony reviews), from Open Sea Leather Co. on YouTube.

That’s Open Sea Leather Co. comparing several ponies side by side. My bias first. On my Maker page I say hand stitching is the one part of the job I won’t hand to anyone else, so I care how the work gets held. The specs below are the makers’ and sellers’ own, the field reports come from the leatherworker.net and Bushcraft UK forums, and the judgments are labeled.

What each one is

Pony on the bench, clam between the knees, horse under the seat.

Hands saddle stitching a chestnut leather seam held upright in a wooden saddler's clam.

A stitching pony is a short pair of wooden jaws on a stand. Tandy’s Craftool Stitching Pony is sold as a way to hold your project so you can work with both hands free, with adjustable jaws and a locking wing nut. Weaver says its leather stitching pony can be sat on or clamped to a workbench. Lee Valley calls its stitching pony “a practical third hand” and says the long base can be clamped down or sat on.

A saddler’s clam is older and taller. The Museum of English Rural Life holds a saddler’s clamp from the 1940s, two flexible slats of curved beech held between the knees while the saddler sews. Abbey England’s saddler’s clams, made in the UK from plywood, run about 111 cm long, and the listing says to set them between the legs at roughly 45 degrees.

A stitching horse puts the jaws on a seat of its own, so the stitcher sits on the tool instead of beside it. On the leatherworker.net thread about using a pony or horse, Black Dogg says he built his from Stohlman’s plans. Weaver sells one on its stitching pony page. Its listing gives a price and not much else.

On the forum, Black Dogg explains the mechanics of a clam in a thread on a pony and clam question: the jaws supply their own tension, the lever opens them, and the tool has no base, so it’s held between the thighs while seated or mounted to a low bench.

Five options, side by side

The sellers’ numbers, as listed in October 2026.

ToolWhat the seller saysSize, per the sellerListed price
Craftool Stitching Pony (Tandy)Adjustable jaws, locking wing nut, hands free15 x 14.5 in.; grip depth 3 in.; max grip width 0.83 in.CAD $49.99
Weaver Leather Stitching PonySolid wood; sit on it or clamp it to a benchAbout 15-1/2 L x 3 W x 14-1/2 H in.$25.75
Lee Valley Stitching PonyBeech and steel; clamp or sit on the baseAbout 16-1/4 x 3-1/2 x 14-1/2 in.CAD $64.90
Abbey England Saddler’s Clams (Best)UK-made plywood clams, held at about 45 degreesAbout 111 cm overall£99.02 ex. tax
Weaver Stitching HorseListed without specsNot given$440

Two numbers in that table deserve a second look. Tandy’s maximum grip width is under an inch, which is plenty for a strap or a wallet and tight for a thick stack. And the Weaver pony costs well under a tenth of the Weaver horse. That is the real choice most beginners face.

The pony: cheap, small, and honest about it

Right for straps, wallets and short seams.

Macro view of leather-lined stitching pony jaws gripping a brown leather strap with stitch holes.

A pony is where most people start, and the forum is split on the cheap ones. In a thread on what pony or clamp people use, jk215 calls the Tandy lacing pony “a piece of junk” that couldn’t fit longer projects. Rayban, in the same thread, used his daily for about twenty years and says it’s by no means junk. Both can be true. A short pony on a long seam is the wrong tool, not a bad one.

On Bushcraft UK, in a thread on pony versus clam, the starter found his cheap pony fiddly, with a weak grip that marked the leather. One reply, passing on a saddler’s advice, says a pony is mainly useful for straps and buckle fittings.

Line the jaws. Weaver’s own listing suggests padding both clamps with leather or fabric to prevent scratches, and on the leatherworker.net thread Buddha Jones covered the tops of his homemade pony with leather and says it works like a charm.

Mind the hardware. Blak Smyth, on the same thread, likes his Sheridan Colt Stitcher, a table clamp with a wood screw, but says the thread wraps around the knob and bolt. Mijo, who switched to the same clamp, praises its wide, thick jaws.

My opinion: a beginner should buy a cheap pony first, line the jaws with scrap, and find out what kind of stitcher they are before spending clam money.

The clam: tall, fast, and a skill of its own

Built for long seams and people who sew every day.

The clam’s case is posture and reach. In a thread on the traditional English stitching clamp, gary sits on a high chair or stool with the jaws between his legs, holds the leather vertical and stabs and stitches horizontally. He says the clams can lean about 40 degrees to either side, and that working upright cuts back strain and gives access to both sides of the leather. Fivewayswelshcobs uses clams with a stirrup for tension, strapped to a bench so the angle can be found again, and says seat height has to match the clams.

The Abbey England listing adds the saddler’s reason: the clam frees both hands for double-hand stitching and supports blind stitching on the back of seams. On Bushcraft UK, Warthog1981 rates a clam as top hand-stitching kit and says it saves time on journals and bags.

The cost is the learning. Ciofficial, a site that sells its own ponies, writes in its pony-versus-clams article that clams can feel intimidating at first and that you can’t easily see the back of your stitches. On the English clamp thread, the starter found it hard to keep the awl vertical and the leather flat.

My opinion: a long seam on a case, the kind on a writing pad portfolio, is where a clam pays for itself. On a key fob it’s a ladder to reach a shelf you can touch.

What to do with odd shapes

No jaw holds everything. Build around the problem.

A finished hand-stitched tan leather portfolio with a long even seam beside a stitching pony.

Neither tool loves a box or a molded piece. On that same horse thread, the starter was new to the craft and found that his pony didn’t take 3D shapes well at all, molded holsters and cases especially. Battlemunky suggested clamping a different part of the work, further from the joint, or sewing pieces flat and shaping them afterward. Black Dogg and fredk block odd shapes out with wood, towels and scrap leather until they sit in the jaws. The starter’s last word was that a clamp could crush a molded piece. That’s worth hearing.

Small work has its own answer. In a thread on using a portable workbench instead of a pony, JerryLevine uses a vise with lined jaws for short pieces, and Tree Reaper clamps his pony into the workbench’s jaws and stores both together.

Mattsbagger, on the horse thread, puts the whole subject in one line: “I need to have 2 hands free to stitch.” Whatever does that for the piece in front of you is the right tool for it.

The case for no clamp at all, and where it fails

I sew in my hands. That’s not advice for a beginner.

Here’s my case. On The Art of Hand Stitching I wrote that I sew in the air, with the work in my hands instead of pushed against a metal plate. That line is about machines. But the idea carries. I stitch with my whole body, and I used to make apprentices who sat still and moved only their fingers get up and move with the piece. A clamp nails the leather to one spot. Thick bridle on a briefcase doesn’t always want to be nailed down.

Now the part that cuts the other way. Those same helpers could follow the motion fine, and what beat them, again and again, was their fingers hurting and their attention drifting off the seam. Stitching is focus more than difficulty. Three layers of the thickest bridle are hard on my own fingers, and I’ve done it for years. A beginner fighting to hold the work steady with one hand and sew with the other is spending focus they don’t have, and the Bushcraft UK reply that says hands are all you need is right only for someone whose hands already know the job.

So my opinion is narrower than my habit. Learn on a pony or a clam. Both hands free, the piece still, your eyes on the stitch. The guild tradition behind this kit, laid out in the post on cordwainers and saddlers, was built by people who sewed all day for a living and still used clams.

Moving with the work comes later. It doesn’t come first.

Lunarm Stitching Pony: A stitching pony for holding work while sewing. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

FASTTOBUY Leather Stitching Pony: A desk-mounted stitching pony for holding work while sewing. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

John James Saddlers Harness Blunt Point Needles: A set of blunt-point harness needles, five sizes with five needles of each. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

Mandala Crafts 150D 0.8mm Black Flat Waxed Thread: A flat waxed polyester thread, 0.8 mm, in black, for hand sewing leather. See it on Amazon (affiliate link).

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A commission may be earned if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you.

Sources

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