As an alternative to hand skiving the edges of straps to create swells for bridles, I wanted to see if my bottom feed bell skiver could do it to save time (10 sec versus 30 min) and produce a consistent thickness. Think I am closing in on a solution. I am using 9-10 oz bridle leather and thinning the edges to about 3 oz thickness. This is a fairly steep taper on leather that is thicker than typical for a bell skiver.
First thing was to improve the feed of thick leather through the machin