Splitter Help Please

[catskin]

I have what I have been told from pictures is a Osbourne 86 splitter. When I pull the leather through it tends to move from right to left so that if I am splitting a long piece it will run over to the end of the knife before it is all the way through. The wider the piece the faster it goes sideways. What are the possible reasons for this? It also sometimes will cut off the leather for no obvious reason. Most of the work I do is strips cut the length of the hide so there is some variation as you go from hip to rib to shoulder , can this be the cause?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[BondoBobCustomSaddles]

The problem is that your blade is not square, front to back, with the roller that the leather rolls on as it goes into the blade. you will have to adjust it so that it is square.

Bob

[busted]

There is the possibility that the ends of the roller are worn unevenly and will be in need of repairing.

I have what I have been told from pictures is a Osbourne 86 splitter. When I pull the leather through it tends to move from right to left so that if I am splitting a long piece it will run over to the end of the knife before it is all the way through. The wider the piece the faster it goes sideways. What are the possible reasons for this? It also sometimes will cut off the leather for no obvious reason. Most of the work I do is strips cut the length of the hide so there is some variation as you go from hip to rib to shoulder , can this be the cause?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[catskin]

Thanks guys, I think the roller adjustment was the culprit. I didn't have much time but made some adjustment and it helped. I still need to fine tune it. I will bring in my micrometer and check for wear on the roller to. I have a steel lathe so I could make a new one if I had to.

[Andrew Chee]

Your issue with the splitter chopping the leather can be caused by many things. I'm thinking your splitter may not have a top roller so sometimes the

Esther may flip up a bit and the blade will chop it off. Sometimes we. Yo hit a hard spot in the leather the blade can chop it off. T the best of your ability try to hold the lesser down. Even so, this may continue to happen once in a while.

Andrew

[catskin]

Your issue with the splitter chopping the leather can be caused by many things. I'm thinking your splitter may not have a top roller so sometimes the

Esther may flip up a bit and the blade will chop it off. Sometimes we. Yo hit a hard spot in the leather the blade can chop it off. T the best of your ability try to hold the lesser down. Even so, this may continue to happen once in a while.

Andrew

You are right these splitters don't have a top roller. I am thinking of makeing a roller or springy piece of metal to hold the leather down so it feeds in level and mount it in front of the splitter.

[bruce johnson]

All good advice so far. When the leather tends to always move across in one direction, it is usuallyt a mismatch between the roller and the leading edge of the blade. For all intents and purposes the leading edge of the blade should be even with the dead center top of the roller. It also needs to be dead level with the roller, higher on one side will make your leather run to one side too. One less common thing that can cause that is the bevel is not consistant across the the blade.

As far as chopping, one of the things that can happen with any splitter with a single roller, but more common probably on the #86. I had one a month ago that was mounted on a base with a roller in front of the splitter. You could run your leather under that and it feed up into the splitter. A really nice set up for a braider. Otherwise you need to be sure that the leather is feeding from below the leve l of the roller. You also need to make sure you are pulling at the very highest even withe the level of the roller and best practice is probably to pull below the roller level. This is the most common thing I see with a #86 chopping. The other is that sometimes you hit a harder spot in the leather and that hard spot rides right up the bevel of the blade and chops it off.

I have seen a picture of at least one #86 that was modified to have a guard/hold down rod in front of the blade like a #84. It can be done.

[catskin]

Thanks Bruce. I was thinking that I should do some measureing of clearances to make sure they are even, and the roller centered under the blade.