How To Skive Consistently With Super Skiver?

[Ferg]

I lay the leather on either a marble slab, nylon cutting board or a piece of wood/MDF, with the edge of the leather close to the edge of stone etc.

This gives you some much needed angling of the blade without cutting into your table top.

Knife of any type needs to be super sharp and stropped often.

ferg

[lightningad]

thanks chaps - now i get it. Think i'd better practice that a bit before using it on a real project...

[footrat]

Thanks for the replies. For those who are skilled with the super skiver, do you focus more on keeping the left to right angle or on the height of the handle as you pull back? How often do you change blades? How do I know when it's time? Does everyone agree that skiving when wet is best?

I don't just pull on the handle. I also push on the head. I'm a lefty, so my left hand controls the handle pitch and yaw, while the right thumb pushes on the head. The outside sides of my hands stay planted on the leather, keeping it still while the skiver moves. I skive my straps where they fold or have to double or triple up in thickness, so I want a nice, even skive across the width of the strap, with a "scooped" look to the skive down the length of the strap. I could never do that by using only one hand for control.

The handle of the skiver is often NOT in line with the direction of the cut, but angled just to the side. At the edges of the strap, this makes the blade contact as little leather as possible, reducing the drag and the force needed for the cut. There are several big problems I run into with the Super Skiver. Firstly, the blade ends up bent convexly. This makes a deeper cut in the center of the tool head than toward the outsides. Just something that has to be worked around if you want your skiving completely smooth across the piece, instead of cut concavely in the center. Secondly, the blade is angled very aggressively down from the head. This makes the blade bite harder into the leather, increasing drag, and often taking too deep a cut. It also leaves a gap between the head and the blade where little pieces of leather pack in and push the blade FURTHER from the head. I have to stop from time to time and clean that out.

I change blades when it's apparent that poor cutting is due to dullness, and not due to bad blade angle or crud between the blade and tool head. If I wanted to strop things, I wouldn't own a tool with disposable blades. I'd throw down on a good skiving knife that would last for decades. I don't want to strop things right now, so I stick with disposables.

I've never wet-skived. I've wet-edge-beveled, and I didn't like it as much as dry. I might have to try this. Remember, however, that if you wet a piece and then turn it grain-down on a cutting board so you can skive it, you're going to texture the grain side with the board, or whatever is down there.

Edited May 15, 2013 by footrat

[pgivens]

Thanks footrat! That was helpful. I practiced a bit last night with your two handed method, controlling the angle of the skiver with one hand and pushing the head along with the other. I did get better results, but it still feels like there is a lot of resistance. I guess I just need more practice. Sounds like the general consensus is to ditch the super skiver and get a real skiving knife :\