Splitter Or Skiver?

[KathrynHD]

23 hours ago, RockyAussie said:

Like you I think I bought a lot of howlers when I first started off. I bought a roller type for a way lotta money and found that I then needed to become a master at sharpening to get anywhere near to predictable results. That also takes a fair time to do. I have had the boot repair style cutter/skiver and for shoe repairing hard sole leather but not any use for general leather goods making. I would suggest you keep an eye out for a good priced bell skiver. I have band knife splitters but early on I did a lot of my splitting requirements with a bell knife skiver and they have the advantage of being able to be sharpened by the machine within a few seconds normally. I would recommend either a Fortuna or a Fav AV2 machine as my first choices and you can see in this video I did awhile back a little of what I am talking about. There are a few others as well if you check while your there.  They are not hard to resell if you decide to later on.

 

Thank you for your reply.  It looks interesting, I wonder how they worked....What is the maximum width of leather that will split?

[Spyros]

On 11/18/2021 at 9:27 PM, KathrynHD said:

What about this one?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275030817581?hash=item40091d3b2d:g:ZM8AAOSwyNdhgpwD

Says the spring metal opener  is broken and missing??  for the pliers. Is this fixable? Is it mad to buy an untested machine?  Certainly looks nice. I would want for splitting and skiving

I have a cheap ebay version of this thing, and it works for me, but it does take some upper body strength and it will stretch your leather a bit. 

But most crucially, have you ever tried to sharpen a blade like that?  The one I bought even has a secondary bevel, which means that once a month I need a full hour in complete silence and focus to sharpen this thing, and I've sharpened (feels like) a million things in my life so it's not like I'm new to sharpening.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Spyros

[RockyAussie]

1 hour ago, KathrynHD said:

Thank you for your reply.  It looks interesting, I wonder how they worked....What is the maximum width of leather that will split?

If you wanted to do a large piece that is not easily bent ...with the guide removed you can go back untill you reach the overhead arm at the back which is about 8' or 200mm so if you turn it around you would be able to double that width to 16". The roller or presser guide though means that you are limited to doing each pass at around 30mm or 1.2" at a time. Most stuff like belts and that take one pass either side which can be bevelled or flat if you want. I do have one video where I am doing up 100+ croc belts which I think I have to get around to loading up sometime soon. Here are a few pictures that show one of the typical uses this machine is used for-

Here this croc top pieces are ready to skive

Here are the leather fillers that are skived

This is showing the croc being skived

Edges at .5mm

What some look like when nearly finished

[KathrynHD]

That looks very impressive...thank you, I will do some research 

[KathrynHD]

12 hours ago, Spyros said:

I have a cheap ebay version of this thing, and it works for me, but it does take some upper body strength and it will stretch your leather a bit. 

But most crucially, have you ever tried to sharpen a blade like that?  The one I bought even has a secondary bevel, which means that once a month I need a full hour in complete silence and focus to sharpen this thing, and I've sharpened (feels like) a million things in my life so it's not like I'm new to sharpening.

  It does seem a mammoth task the sharpening.  I have seen videos on ones where you put them in a gadget with wheels, can't remember what it's called and that helps to shape when there is a bevel.  Also graduating wet and dry paper fixed over glass looks a good option but I have only done a minimum amount of sharpening knives, just have watched a few videos too.  It's all food for thought.  Keep getting very tempted and then put off 

[Spyros]

34 minutes ago, KathrynHD said:

  It does seem a mammoth task the sharpening.  I have seen videos on ones where you put them in a gadget with wheels, can't remember what it's called and that helps to shape when there is a bevel.  Also graduating wet and dry paper fixed over glass looks a good option but I have only done a minimum amount of sharpening knives, just have watched a few videos too.  It's all food for thought.  Keep getting very tempted and then put off 

Maybe get a 2nd hand one, something you can sell for roughly what you paid if it doesn't work out for you, and give it a go.   Maybe it's just me struggling with sharpening in general.