Rookie Question About Splitters

[tntsl]

Here is a rookie question. What are splitters generally used for? In the leatherworking tools book by Al Stohlman, it says they are used to taper the ends of straps for splice joints skiving relatively narrow pieces of leather very consistently. I've looked around here a bit and it looks like people also use splitters to skive lace to a desired thickness. Is that it? So far my leatherwork has been limited to making small pocket cases and a couple belts. I plan to do more carving and stamping as well as some knife sheaths and gun holsters. Do I really need a splitter for this type of work?

[Randy Cornelius]

A splitter can be used for anything that you need to reduce the thickness of a piece of leather for. You can do some of that with a hand skiver, but for consistant thickness reduction the use of some type of a bench mounted splitter is very useful. Sometimes cheeper lace will come with thickness inconsistant, I have been know to run a section of lace through the splitter to give it a consistant thickness for lacing, rawhide is a perfect example. Depending on your source it will need split down for lacing.

Hope this helps to answer your question. Leather work sometimes stops being a hobby and turns into an obsession, then you just have to have a splitter attached to your bench just becasue you can....There are those who have several splitters, (Bruce, you can answer this one.LOL) for what ever reason.

Randy

[bruce johnson]

Splitters are used to thin down leather. Skivers are used to taper leather to make joins or to blend back into itself like the fold at the end of a strap. Some bench and power machines are pure splitter, some are pure skivers, and some will do both. In a nutshell splitters have a fixed adjustment and leather is pulled into the blade or pushed in by feed rollers to thin down heavier leather or lace to a consistant thickness. Examples are the Osborne #86 and Chase pattern splitters. Bench and powered skivers will cut a taper from the edge of the leather. Some of these are the Landis and American crank skivers, or powered bell knife skivers. The combination splitter/skivers have an easier adjustment for the thickness of leather and the adjustment is gradually made from thicker to thinner as the leather is being pulled into the blade. It is a finesse of changing the thickness adjustment at a rate that is right for the speed your pulling to get a nice even transition. It is combination of pull on the leather with one hand and push on the depth adjustment with the other. The more common ones are the handled splitters like an Osborne #84, Keystone, and the similar patterns to those or the Osborne #83 or Spittler pattern splitters with the plier type handles.

Most people use a splitter when they buy a heavier weight of leather and then split it down for the particular needs at hand. People cutting their own lace use them to even up thickness. I have a few different styles and makers of splitters and prefer one or the other for different things or a particular width I am working with.

[tntsl]

Thanks for the replies fellas. It sounds like I won't need one any time soon but at some point in the distant future I may. I've got plenty to learn before I get to that point though.

[Sharon Kudrle]

I just bought an American Model A splitter, how do I adjust the rollers for thickness?

I loosened the wing nut on the gauge at the top of the machine and also loosened the screw underneath it, but I still can't move the gauge to the left or right. It seems to be stuck at 12, yet the space between the rollers looks very narrow.

I know the blade platform is broken, but am hoping the machine is still usable.