Cutting leather

[Jae7]

I was recently cutting some 13-15 oz. leather with my round knife. In some areas, the knife would not cut. My knife was very sharp, yet could not cut through the leather. Anybody ever encounter this and/or have some suggestions?

[buffalo]

I often times think----that they must have left the bones in the leather.

Buff

[Luke Hatley]

yes it has happened to me .... where did you buy the leather?

[wolvenstien]

Hard spots... it happens.... Welcome to the site, I see this is your first post....

When you say "round knife" do you mean a head knife:

or a rotary knife:

Reason I ask, I find that my Rotary (round) knife has problems cutting through the hard spots where my Head (crescent) Knife usually doesnt. But I dont usually cut 13oz leather either.

[bruce johnson]

Hardspots are sometimes seen in that heavy leather when it doesn't tan all the way through, and has a rawhide center. Usually not cheap leather either. I have had round (not rotary) knives "climb out" of the cut. That will scare the crap out of you when it just rides up that hard edge and pops up. Draw Gauges will just plain hit the wall. It takes some effort to cut through this. Biggest thing is just knowing it is there, then you can deal with it. Either one of the weapons that Wolvie showed will do the job but will require that you cut carefully.

When I was using one of the leathers with a history of hard spots, it was usually in the necks and shoulders. Groundseat pieces for me, and I could do final cuts on them with my 3-in-1's cutting wheel too. Then soak them up and they worked OK for that.

[Maeshin]

I'm not sure if this is a good approach or not, but when I have encountered areas of veg tan that were particularly difficult to cut through I have generally either continued my main approach (a series of light passes with a rotary cutter until it finally goes through--pretty time consuming and you have to be really careful, particularly on the first couple of passes) or used a pair of metal cutters (the edge tends to be a bit sloppy with this approach, though that can be somewhat mitigated by doing a few passes with a rotary cutter before implementing the metal cutters).

[Jae7]

Appreciate ya'lls responses. To answer some of ya'lls questions,

by round knife I mean head knife and I bought the hide from The Leather Factory.

I recently bought a second one and have yet to run into any problems.