AliExpress Leathercraft Mold Review

On AliExpress, they were selling a card wallet mold for 11.88 dollars.

With a Singles’ Day discount, it went down to 9.64 dollars.

In Korean won, that’s about 13,000 KRW.

If you order a card wallet mold with chisels set at 3mm intervals domestically, the price is roughly between 200,000 and 300,000 KRW, so in terms of price alone it’s more than 20 times cheaper. 

Shipping took just a week.

But the condition is terrible.

It seems like the Chinese don’t know the meaning of “finishing.”

If you look closely, you can see that the wood is cracked here and there all over.

On top of that, the places where the chisels are set are all broken, as if they were just pressed in by force.

The side is just openly split.

I seriously debated whether I should refinish the whole thing with epoxy.

At a glance, the chisels don’t seem to have much variance in angle or height.

I tried stamping Korean Pueblo leather with a Dream Factory foil stamping machine.

If you look closely, you can see the chisels are misaligned here and there.

As the saying goes, you get what you pay for; this feels more like a toy.

Thankfully, it seems the difference in height somehow gets evened out when pressed.

There wasn’t a single place where a hole failed to punch through.

I tried stamping the entire front of the leather.

If it were a proper leathercraft pricking iron, it would naturally open up the needle holes, but this just barely presses them in. 

Still, once the stitching is done, the quality looks decent enough.

The person receiving it as a gift probably won’t be able to tell whether it was made with a pricking iron or stamped with a mold.

This is my first time buying a mold that comes with chisels already attached, and considering the price, the quality is not bad.

Of course, I would never recommend it if you do leathercraft professionally.

If you’re planning to give card wallets as gifts to your students, or you need to mass-produce low-quality items, then I’d recommend it.

It’s cheap enough that it’s worth buying just to satisfy your curiosity.