From my experience, the angled blade helps to make those tight cuts. I use just the straight blade for decades until I was given an angled blade from a man that came by my table at a market . He no longer did leather work. He asked for my card and drove off on his Harley. He called me about two weeks later and wanted to give all his tools to me. I said are you sure you have the right person? He said yes , I met you at the market, and I wanted to give them to someone I knew would use and take care of them. He ended up blessing me with what I estimate to be around 2500.00 worth of stuff. We stayed in touch for awhile and I ended up making a couple holsters for him.