Skiving Trouble

[jayjay]

Hello all I am having an issue with skiving some Herman Oak 4/5 leather. I'm using the CS Osborne right pointed skiving knife and I have it sharp and polished. I usally don't have any issues with skiving but this leather's flesh side is so tight that I can't seem to get the skive started it will just scrape the flesh off so to speak. Normally I start the knife and slide it back and forth to skive the leather to what I want but this leather is posing a formidible foe!!!!!!!

Question

Has anyone ran into this problem and if so what did you do to correct?

As always thanks for your input.

[immiketoo]

Jay, I have experienced this with several kinds of leather. Its due to the rawhide content in the leather. Almost all leather has it and HO is the best at NOT having it. The only way I have found to work around this is to replace the blade on my skiver and start fresh. For your knife that needs sharpening, I don't know what totell you except make it sharper or use a super skiver from Tandy. Hope this helps.

[King's X]

Try applying a small amount of water to the side you are skiving. Let it soak in and strop your knife before going at it.

[jayjay]

thanks everyone I will try the water tip I'll post what happens

[jayjay]

The water trick helped out thank you King X!!!

Try applying a small amount of water to the side you are skiving. Let it soak in and strop your knife before going at it.

[Chavez]

Had a similar problem with a strap of John White's the other day. My splitter just won't bite into it without me running the risk of the blade digging in too far. Had to skive by hand but I'll try the water trick next time!