Leather Splitter?

[paprhangr]

Tandy has their Deluxe Leather splitter 6" blade on sale now for $250 normally $500

Anyone have one of these? looks like it would be handy for skiving buckle ends, etc

[TomG]

I just bought the old model and it's good, but the blade needs to be sharpened or at least stropped.

I also have the "High Tech" splitter and the new one does require a different method of splitting the leather. Still experimenting with the best way to use it.

But, I did do a tapered skive on some Latigo yesterday and my first ttemptswere pretty impressive.. At least or me.

[bloggs]

I've been trying to find some videos of the Tandy Deluxe model and haven't been having much luck. I have a couple questions as well if anyone has experience on one of these.

I would like to be able to split leather down to around the 2oz range for use in wallets. Typically the largest pieces would be maybe 4" wide and 8" long. I have a lot of 4-6 oz leather that I would like to split down to 2 oz or so. Does anyone know if the tandy machine is capable of making that sort of cut reasonably well, or do I need to be looking at something a little higher end?

Also, how sturdy is the tandy model? I found some videos of the weaver heritage which seems to be at least vaguely similar in design and it seems to be a very solid tool.

[paprhangr]

I have like questions, today is last day of sale.

[sfmiaw]

I've been trying to find some videos of the Tandy Deluxe model and haven't been having much luck. I have a couple questions as well if anyone has experience on one of these.

I would like to be able to split leather down to around the 2oz range for use in wallets. Typically the largest pieces would be maybe 4" wide and 8" long. I have a lot of 4-6 oz leather that I would like to split down to 2 oz or so. Does anyone know if the tandy machine is capable of making that sort of cut reasonably well, or do I need to be looking at something a little higher end?

Also, how sturdy is the tandy model? I found some videos of the weaver heritage which seems to be at least vaguely similar in design and it seems to be a very solid tool.

I do not have this particular model, I do have a 6" skiver that is a knock-off version of it. However, I can comment on the 6" skivers in general. While tapering strap ends is fine (1-2"), I have found that splitting/skiving anywhere close to 4-5" with these is VERY leather temper dependent. If you are using anything sort of mild to soft leather, then I have found that the 6" skivers will "resist" and stretch it out (this includes some tooling leather) which will ruin the texture and uniformity of your project. (or maybe my blade isn't sharp enough).IMO, it would be much easier if you just bought 2oz leather instead of splitting it, but otherwise it would depend on the firmness if the leather you are using.

[bloggs]

That's what I was afraid of. Thanks for the advice!

[Geneva]

I had one of these things a couple years ago finally sold it. Tandy does not sharpen the blade at the correct angle or at least the one I had was not right. I had like a 30 degree from horizontal taper on the blade before it cut really good.

Good luck.

[paprhangr]

Thanks, I'll think I'll pass on this "Tandy deal"

[bloggs]

I ended up caving and buying one, so I will figure out what it can and can't do and put up a post about it in a while. I figured that even if it doesn't work so well for the larger pieces it looks like it should do a really nice job on straps which would still be a huge help for me.

[paprhangr]

Thanks for letting us know how it works for you