Skiving question

[ruthless]

If you skive a piece of leather does it weaken it? If I want a thinner piece of leather, should I endeavour to start with a lighter weight of leather? Would it be stronger than a skived piece? [Hope that makes sense!]

[DeeAnna]

Skiving is tapering a piece of leather. It is usually done to reduce bulk at the end of a strap or along a seam. Splitting is uniformly reducing the thickness of leather along its entire surface. Are you perhaps thinking of splitting, rather than skiving???

Here's what I think from observation and experience with vegetable tanned leather -- yes, splitting or skiving leather does weaken the leather to some degree. The amount of weakness created by splitting depends on how much leather you remove, the quality of the leather being split/skived, and the type of tannage (vegetable tanned vs. chrome tanned).

Whether the amount of weakness created by splitting/skiving is an issue depends on the purpose for the leather. If it's a tooled/carved picture, it's probably not a big deal. If it's a part of a horse's harness that will get a lot of stress -- or a wallet that will see a lot of use --it would be far better off to use unsplit leather in the correct thickness needed.

Think of leather as a well-made bird's nest with many interwoven fibers of grass. Obviously, if you don't cut it at all, it will be as strong as it possibly can be. If you cut the nest in half, it is very likely to fall apart. If you trim just a little off one edge, however, the nest is much more likely to retain most of its integrity and strength.

An experiement to try is to split a thick vegetable-tanned leather -- say a piece of skirting -- down to 2-3 ounce thickness. Compare it to an unsplit veg-tan calfskin of the same thickness -- try to tear the two and see what you think.

Hope this helps!

--DeeAnna

[ruthless]

Thanks

I meant splitting

I've never seen leather here sold in different weights, that's why I've been splitting. I'm going to a different leather store today, I'll see what they have.

Cheers!