Is Something Wrong With My Cutting Board?

[ebdavison]

I have a green self-healing cutting board and an Al Stohlman head knife (which I love). But cutting leather seems so hard for sme reason. I know my knife is sharp and cuts quite easily when I cut freehand without the cutting board by holding the leather off the table. But when I use the cutting board it seems like maybe the knife digs in too deal and does not slide.

Am I using a wrong cutting board? If so, what should I be using? If it is ok then what am I doing wrong that makes e cutting so hard?

[Ferg]

The cutting boards you buy in the Fabric stores is intended for the rotary cutters for cloth, leather in straight cuts.

Various leather cutting knives cut a little too deep, try cutting without pressing quite as hard.

There are a number of composite cutting boards available. The hard surface on some will dull your knives quickly.

ferg

[tnawrot2]

You haven't told us what material your cutting board is made from.IMO the best cutting board is HDPE..

[Ferg]

A green cutting board, Fabric stores sell them to be used with cloth and a circular blade rolling knife.

Self healing if you don't cut too deep.

ferg

[ebdavison]

I have ben trying to post a photo but short of that (since I cannot seem to be able to do that from my iPad) here is what I have. It is an ALVIN Cutting Mat # GM1218. No idea what it's made of though.

[Murf]

The cutting boards you buy in the Fabric stores is intended for the rotary cutters for cloth, leather in straight cuts.

Various leather cutting knives cut a little too deep, try cutting without pressing quite as hard.

There are a number of composite cutting boards available. The hard surface on some will dull your knives quickly.

ferg

I have posted about poly boards in the past and its great to see that someone else has had this experience. I used to have a big poly cutting boards from work that we use to edge can chutes with, I used it to clean fish and for about 2 years i wondered why my fillet knives were always dull. Then one day i was hanging out in the maintenance shop at work and a new guy ran a section of the board through the band saw and the supervisor freaked out, the saw cut the board but it took off every tooth on the blade in the process. long story short, every leather worker I have met takes pride in a good sharp round knife. I couldnt imagine taking an expensive well maintained knife and dragging it across a section of plastic.

I use a bamboo cutting board used in a kitchen, found at most stores for around 10$. Its soft but hard. a thin bladed exacto will stick in them or break in them if you press to hard but a round knife will go across with a little drag.

in my opinion cutting thick leather around 8oz should be done in a couple passes, if your trying to muscle through it your very likely to "slip" resulting in injury and or a damaged hide. with thinner leathers a pair of high end shears are worth their weight in gold.

[David8386]

On the posting pictures from an iPad get the image resizer app to do it with. It is simple and works great.

David

[bruce johnson]

I am with tnawrot, I cut on HDPE exclusively and have a 2x4 sheet I use. The softer plastic cutting boards tend to grab points more, and the green mats or heavy black rubber mats are worse in that regard. I skive on glass. One of the bigger mistakes new round knife users make is to push down rather than forward. With the curved blade the slicing action will cut through without much if any downward pressure. Pushing down will put the tip into the board, make it drag, and dull it faster than it should. If you make a tight turn you can twist off that point if it is buried.

[benlilly1]

HDPE??

[Murray]

I kinda like cutting on the green griddy things. My point does get buried and it does slow my blade down but that is what I like. If I keep uniform pressure and don't jerk I get a slow controlled cut. They also don't seem to have any ill effect on my blades sharpness.

[Murf]

HDPE??

High density polyeurethane

[evandailey]

High density polyeurethane

No, it's High Density PolyEthylene. Not Polyeurethane.

[Tannin]

...I know my knife is sharp and cuts quite easily when I cut freehand without the cutting board by holding the leather off the table. ...

Sounds risky, Al Stohlman specifically warns against doing this in one of his books (prob. the tool one). I too use green self-healing mats but I quite like them - as Murray already described. I suspect your round knife (I assume that is what you are using) is not quite as sharp as it could be. If it already seems sharp then perhaps it just needs a little more stropping on leather, perhaps with some compound or metal polish? For straight cuts, you can also roll the blade forward to establish the cut without any drag.

There several good videos on round knives on youtube. I particularly like this one:

If you want to see how sharp his head knife is in practice, take a look at this video @0.45 onwards:

I also like this one by Tandy and if is particularly relevant here, it covers: sharpening, cutting surfaces (@4:20, the red professional one works exceptionally well) and cutting/skiving techniques:

For detailed sharpening info, this one is very good although rather long:

Note: 2 of the videos above use HDPE "poly" boards.

BTW an oiled blade tends to cut more smoothly.

Edited December 19, 2015 by Tannin

[zuludog]

I once got chatting to a retired traditional cobbler & leatherworker - in a pub, where else!?

He probably left school aged 14 or 15, and the retirement age in Britain is 65 ( though it has changed recently) That means he's got at least 50 years experience

He said he used round knives and re-sharpened stanley knives, and that 'them green mats' were as good as anything he'd ever used

I have been fortunate enough to watch professional leatherworkers using round knives on two or three occasions, and although I hadn't really thought about it till I saw this thread, I realise now that their cutting action was more along and not down.

That is for cutting out leather; for skiving you would use a marble or glass slab, or similar