To Bevel Or Not To Bevel...

[entiendo]

Hard to explain....hmm, completely normal with Springfield leather. What I do to get it started is hold on to the end of the piece and help roll it or turn it, with my hand, while I am rolling it with a piece of wood with the other hand. Once it is mostly round you should be able to finish rolling without helping.

[entiendo]

Yes beveling will make smaller, splitting even smaller than that. Use more strings if you want larger diameters, like 6 or 8 plait. Or try some calf hide. My calipers measure about 3.5 mm on a 4 strand braid.

Cores do not help you smooth the braiding in my experience.

I change the position of my blade when the leather does not run through smoothly. That is about all I can tell you there. If it helps I buy 200 blades at a time for my cutter and beveled, my splitter takes a different blade.

[pakalbaugh]

Thanks for the tips on rolling and the comments on cores and blades, entiendo!

Here is pic of the finished braid (still not a finished piece). I'm kind of interested in whether I'm taking enough off when beveling (if you can tell from this shot) and/or if braiding very tightly over a core might be part of the issue..

Thanks!

Pat K

Juneau, AK

Edited July 26, 2013 by pakalbaugh

[entiendo]

That's not bad at all, looks to me like it just needs a bit more rolling.

Are you beveling 30 or 45 degrees? 45 will help you skive off extra thickness if you don't have a splitter. Helps a bit I think. .

It is a little twisted though so be sure you are securing your plaiting while you braid. Sometime tying it on a rope can be counterproductive. try clamping the top of the piece down so it does not twist on it's own while you are braiding...at least with the 8 plait. .

[Leatherpownder]

To roll I use a brown paper bag on a table with a 1' x 3" x 16" piece of hardwood and take some of a paper bag and wrap it and secure with masking tape. Then roll. When the soap builds up so the work won't roll change your paper.

[rawhide1]

Leatherpownder

I'm curious what does the brown bag do.

Thanks, Mike

[Peter T]

When my work is slipping when I roll it, I sometimes use brown paper. I find it gives some extra grip for rolling, making it easier especially down the finer end of a whip. I have a whole roll of it and just tear off a length and put it over my board (a 2 1/2' by 1 1/2' piece of laminex kitchen benchtop) and tuck the ends of the paper under the sides of the board.

I have also tried using Rosin (the powder that sportspeople put on their hands for extra grip). A bit off a light dusting on the board a roll away. I prefer the brown paper, but I know others that prefer the Rosin.

Pete

[pakalbaugh]

Someone else (not in this forum) also suggested a paper bag on the counter and on the wood and I've tried it but not recently. I think the problem here is that I am braiding too tight so it won't roll and I'm using a core that may not be the right size or the right material. I have always heard "pull it tight" so I took it literally and pulled as tight as I could. On this particular leash, I actually pulled each string each time I brought one around the back so this one is ultra tight. Last night I was reading David Morgan's book (Braiding Fine Leather - it just arrived in the mail on Friday) and in the section where he talks about rolling the leather, it states that if it won't roll, it's braided too tight. So, I think I still need to work on how much tension/pull I give the strands. Morgan also shows, step by step, how to braid and when to pull which he calls "The Mechanics of Braiding". I'm sure I've probably gotten into some bad habits but I'm going to try his method and see if I can switch to his.

I highly recommend David Morgan's book. It's helped me understand and answer some of the questions I've had about braiding leather along with the people in this forum who have helped put the pieces together.

Pat K

Juneau, AK

[pakalbaugh]

That's not bad at all, looks to me like it just needs a bit more rolling.

Are you beveling 30 or 45 degrees? 45 will help you skive off extra thickness if you don't have a splitter. Helps a bit I think. .

It is a little twisted though so be sure you are securing your plaiting while you braid. Sometime tying it on a rope can be counterproductive. try clamping the top of the piece down so it does not twist on it's own while you are braiding...at least with the 8 plait. .

I have only tried beveling at 30 degrees. I might try 40 next time.

I got David Morgan's book, Braiding Fine Leather, in the mail Friday. In it he says that beveling for six and eight strand braids is done by taking one corner off the underside and the opposite corner off the top side (parallelogram) which is different than anything I've seen in other books or online and different than what he recommends for four strand braids (which is what I've always seen...both corners off the underside are beveled). It makes some sense because the six and eight strand braids lay a little differently than the four strand when braided. I'm not sure how it works in actual practice, though. I need to read more to figure out how to set the strands up in prep to braid with this type of bevel and do a short test to see if it really helps. Also not sure how this will work with pre-cut lace.

Pat K

Juneau, AK

[entiendo]

David Morgan didn't work with Springfield leather, I would not loosen your braid, and your cores are fine too. However with 1/8" string you can go up to 3/16 inch core if I remember correctly. The herringbone braid is actually a square braid so if you have a tiny core you are rolling corners round so that is part of it as well. 8 plaits can be rolled round, trust me, you will just have to do some experimenting with something that works for you.

Yes you can bevel as David Morgan suggests but I would not do that with kangaroo. Especially kangaroo with a finish. I did it like that for a long time and it looks nicer the reverse like he suggest for 4 plait. And let me tell you I went through a whole heck of a lot of colored string when I did it that way. It is really hard! That finish is also even worse on blades so you can go about a foot and then you need to move the blade.

Edited July 28, 2013 by entiendo