A pricking wheel is a tool designed for marking stitch hole locations on leather. It is comprised of a wheel metal with very sharp points that go all around it. It is visually similar to an overstitch wheel, though the pricking wheel generally has sharper points that penetrate the leather more deeply.

This can be helpful when hand-stitching smaller items or of benefit even when planning to use pricking irons to make all of the stitching holes (using the pricked markings as a guide).

Pricking wheels come in various sizes and point spacings, so you can choose the one that best suits the leather craft project’s needs.

Some pricking wheels come with a “fence”. The fence is an additional metal piece that attaches to the top and allows for a variable edge distance to be set. For example, if you want the stitch line to be 1/8” away from the leather’s edge, the fence can be set to 1/8”. Wherever the tool is used, the wheel markings will be at a consistent distance from the edge.