Is Something Wrong With My Cutting Board?

[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