Digit

A very hard and durable type of wood found easily in Europe would be the invasive Robinia Pseudoacacia (false acasia, black locust). Easiest found commercially as fence posts over here in Belgium, which gives you a nice base to cut (smallish diameter) discs from to then lathe some grooves on.

For cutting out panels I use a heavyweight paper (200-250g/m²) to create a template to the final size of the leather, place the template onto the grain side, trace around it with a silver pen, then cut out the leather on the inside of the ink. On smooth leather the silver rubs off easily with a damp cloth.

I've got several of those lying around. One of them is currently powering a workplace heater (a Chinese Webasto clone) off a tranfsormer. As long as the incandescent bulb keeps working I'll use that one. I'm not a fan of flickering LED lights (even with a cap on the rectifier they still flicker).

If you don't have a needle positioning system, then experiment with turning the handwheel to find the 'correct' position before changing stitching direction or you might undo the last forward stitch on the first reverse stitch. The needle should be down and the interlock made. If the needle is down but the lock isn't made, you're going to pull the top thread right back out and you'll have a hole without any thread in.

Practice makes perfect. Use scrap pieces of leather or very thick textile (folded over to match leather thickness) to test your stitches and thread tension. Experiment with thread sizes and stitch lengths, just make sure your needle size is adjusted to the thread size and your stitch length is adjusted to the material thickness (larger stitches for thicker material). Use different color upper and lower thread while testing thread tension: correct tension means you don't see bits of the lower thread color on top and no bits of upper thread color on the bottom stitch. You mentioned your machine has a servo motor. Does it come with a needle positioning system? If so, practice stitch-by-stitch sewing to get a feel of the pedal control. Also practice stitching at the slowest possible speed. Try to visually align the edge of your piece with the needle plate or presser foot and practice making straight stitches that are perfectly parallel with the edge of the piece or other stitches. When sewing two or more bits together, keeping things in place is the hardest part. With textile you can use pins, but those leave a mark on leather. With leather you can use contact adhesive or double-side tape to set your pieces together before stitching them (just make sure your glue is dry before stitching and don't stitch through tape; both can mess up your needle).

The VFD I ordered has arrived and I hooked it up last weekend. I've left the original switch in the 3-phase circuit because on inspection it contained an overload protection circuit. I guess that when the motor does overload, the VFD would switch off earlier than the elements in the old switch have time to warm up, but having a backup protection doesn't hurt. It took some looking though the manual to find the few things I needed to configure among a gazillion possible settings, but now that I have it configured it's simply a matter of turning the motor on with the green button on the VFD and turning the motor off with the red button. Added bonus is the configurable wind-down time: I've set it to three seconds so that the motor is actively stopped instead of it taking over a minute of free spin when it was powered directly from the mains. I'll probably be adding easier-to-operate external start and stop buttons in the future and hide the VFD under the bench. Added bonus: the motor has some mid-winding leads (so an auto-transformer actually) going to the junction box to offer 12V AC to power an auxiliary incandescent light, which still works. @Tigweldor The VFD fan can be set to automatic, which means that it only runs when necessary, which apparently means from half a second after the motor is started to half a minute after the motor has been turned off. It doesn't bother me too much though; it makes about the same amount of noise as the motor itself and it will only be running for short amounts of time. I never have huge amounts of leather to skive.

The .75kW one of this listing: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007944151596.html

Thank you all for the replies. Belgium is basically the sticks in the electro/mechanical field. Labour is so expensive over here that most small industries have moved away or went out of business decades ago and the associated tools have been sold off or scrapped. I'm also under the impression that over here there is very little interest in tinkering with stuff; that means there's not much of a second-hand market (complete machines or loose components) or scrap yards where you can find parts. The skiver I've bought was actually a rare find, especially given its age. It was used by a now retired shoemaker and his successor prefers to use a more modern machine and sold this one. I've tested it in the seller's workshop and I was surprised by the reasonable quietness of the motor and the suppleness of the clutch. The plate on the motor mentions the factory in Leinfelden which, according to the company's website, started in 1960. From 1985 they started making servo motors. Given this info and the motor's build quality I guess it must have been made somewhere in the sixties. I'm not planning to install 3-phase power just yet. In Belgium there's 3ph arriving in most homes, but historically only one phase was hooked up and the utility companies alternated phases between houses to get them balanced. With the advent of electric cars and solar panels, new houses are more likely to get a proper 3-phase connection. Upgrading an existing single phase connection to three phases costs nearly as much as I paid for this skiver and would additionally require an inspection of the full electrical installation, which isn't free either. Since there is an abundant supply of three-phase power in Belgium (albeit with a price tag), even to remote areas, and there has been for decades, there is no market for rotary phase converters (new or second hand). @Cumberland Highpower I know I can run a three-phase motor on single phase using a Steinmetz connection (capacitors), but it's not very efficient and could risk overheating the motor by running it underpowered. @Dwight I get what you're saying and it would make sense from a business perspective. However I do this as a hobby and for the moment I can still use the skivers at school, so there's no real pressure to get mine working. Also, contrary to most other Belgians, I do like to tinker with stuff and try things out. @Tigweldor as I understand it, VFDs use an inverter to rectify incoming AC to DC and then produce simulated AC by pulsing DC (PWM) on successive phases; this pulsing can produce an audible whine in the motor, which you can reduce by tuning the carrier frequency. The VFD can produce 380V if it includes a step-up-converter in the DC line. @Northmount I have no intention to run the motor on a different speed than it was made for, so cooling shouldn't be a problem as long as I vacuum the accumulated dust from the motor's grill. Anyway, the clutch allows me to tune the speed of the skiver using the pedal. To conclude, I've ordered a single-phase 230V to three-phase 380V Chinese VFD and I'll see where that gets me. I'll keep you guys updated.

Hi all, I've just bought an old bell skiver (Fortuna) powered by a three-phase clutch motor. I don't have three-phase power at home, so now I'm looking at possible options to get this machine running. Option one: replace the clutch motor with a servo. This comes with the downside of losing the vintage esthetics and the need to get the servo motor speed-calibrated correctly. Option two: buy a variable frequency drive (VFD) to convert single-phase to three-phase to power the motor. This also loses a little bit of the vintage esthetic, but the VFD can be hidden under the bench more easily I guess. For this option I have two directions to go in. The clutch motor states 220/380V, so that means it can be hooked up to either a three-phase 220V supply when connected in Delta, or to a three-phase 380V supply when connected in Wye. Searching for VFDs I find both 1p/220V-to-3p/220V units and 1p/220V-to-3p/380V units. When I use the former I'd have to connect the motor in Delta, when I use the latter I need to connect it in Wye. Does one or the other have a preference? Can VFDs be used for either Delta or Wye connection or do they assume one of the two?

Why not use chrome tan on both sides? Possibly with a reinforcement tape in between? A while ago I've used two layers of 1.2mm (3oz) chrome tan with a reinforcement tape sandwiched in between as a leg strap for a leg bag. I's very thin, soft and supple.

Hi all, I've been lurking in these forums and occasionally replying for a few weeks now. Time for a proper introduction. I'm from a town near Antwerp, Belgium. In my day job I'm a software programmer and to compensate for the cerebral work I like to use my hands. I've been attending evening classes since 2005: four years of woodworking, two years of welding, two years of photography, four years of metal turning and milling, a four-year electrician's course, and past September I've started a four-year course of leatherwork. Some of the things I've made in school so far: First exercise: tassel (learning how to cut and glue leather) Next, a strap with small carabiner (gluing layers of leather and reinforcement, using the belt cutter, machine stitching, rivet press): A small round coin pouch (learning to cut round shapes): A small card holder (first use of the skiver): A small folding pouch (with pigskin liner glued to the leather): A pencil pouch (pigskin liner, skived edges, inside seams): A glasses case (reinforcement and liner glued in a curved form): And finally a small toiletry bag (inside seams, loose suede liner, zipper stitched in between outer leather and liner): It's been a steep learning curve so far, but I'm enjoying it a lot. All of these were school assignments; I've made some other stuff on my own as well, but that's for another post.

Could the number of posts per page be made configurable in the user profile? I rather liked to see all recent posts on the first page of any subforum (I'd probably even set it to 50 or so).

I was thinking more of some kind of antibacterial spray like https://www.dettol.co.uk/household-disinfection/multi-purpose-cleaning/dettol-mould-mildew-remover-spray-original-750-ml/ or https://www.dettol.co.uk/household-disinfection/everyday-cleaning/dettol-surface-cleanser-spray-500-ml/ Or you could try pouring some 60-90% isopropanol in a spray bottle and use that. Isopropanol is the active antibacterial ingredient in most alcohol gels; I wouldn't try smearing an actual gel on leather. Note that the first one seems to contain bleach; always test first to see if whatever you apply on leather doesn't cause discoloration.

You can use all sorts of reinforcements for chrome tan leather, depending on the sturdyness and thickness you want. Salpa (bonded leather) comes in several thicknesses (0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0mm), there's also Velodon, Texon, and you can use just about any type of woven textile cloth or canvas as well. Just glue it to the leather with PVA and make sure you sew around the edges to keep the layers from peeling. If you use some porous reinforcement (eg textile) it'll be a mess of glue of course. Any mess or ugly reinforcement you can hide with thin leather lining on the inside, such as pigskin.

I've heard of people using Dettol to combat mold on leather, which apparently worked. I haven't tried it myself.