Leather Splitter Setup Help

[oltoot]

Thanks for that, my experience is limited to US and Canadian made types.

[Rarere]

UPDATE

I took the blade to get re ground and it came out beautifully.

After mounting and some final tweaking I ran a thin piece about 1 inch wide through it.

A beautiful split!

The smile did not last long however. I tried a piece about 4" wide and it began to twist and warp.

After some head scratching my father and I found that the bottom toothed roller in fact has a slight taper on it, which I guess would explain why a wider piece would be skewed.

Not quiet sure how to tackle this next hurdle. Grinding the roller so it is even would remove the teeth on one end.

Though I don't see it working correctly any other way.

Back to the drawing board

[bruce johnson]

Normally when they twist to one side then a few things can be happening.

There should be a way to adjust the distance between the bottom roller and the blade and level the blade vs. the feed roller. On the US made ones there is a stud that goes into the two bottom roller bushing blocks with two jam nuts that can be tightened or loosened to adjust each side.

The other thing that twists the piece from one side to the other is pressure. Again, on the US made ones there are heavy compression springs that pressure the bottom roller. If one side has more pressure than the other that can affect feeding. Sometimes you have to back the pressure all the way off then tighten each side a bit at a time to keep it even.

[silverwingit]

When you split 4" wide strips of leather on a hand splitter you enter a different world. Much of the results even under the best of conditions depend on the type of leather you are splitting and even the specific sample/cut of leather you split as well as the thinness of the split you are trying to achieve. When you split oil-stuffed leathers thinly down close to the flesh side, for example, the strip can easily stretch and warp. You have to be very careful about just how you grasp the sample to pull it through in such a way that uniform tension is applied across the width of the sample as well as its length. A wide-grip Vice-Grip pliers can help with that.

There's lots of technique involved. Similar to cutting a straight line with a swivel knife, avoid wrist or elbow action and use shoulder or even body motion away from the splitter to do the splitting, especially with long samples. Try to hold the sample in such a way that as you split, the sample enters and leaves the splitter at the same angles thought the length of the split. The little guide bar isn't always sufficient and it affects different leathers differently depending on their stiffness. A helper guiding the strip into the splitter as you pull it through can make the difference. Even with a good split with wide strips I often then re-cut the split sample to the desired final dimensions. In my experience, you are expecting a lot trying to thinly split wide samples to exact dimensions.

Like someone said, be prepared to ruin a lot of leather to get good at it. Even a well-set up hand splitter is like a violin. You don't just walk up to one out lf the blue and expect to play it well.

Michelle

[Rarere]

Sorry I completely forgot to update you all.

Thank you to all that contributed but Bruce hit the nail on the head.

I pulled the whole machine apart and reassembled it.

Not quite sure what i did that was different from the original set up but it worked!

able to split a 5" wide piece of chromexcel even which surprised me.

It's not perfect but I think its the best I will get out of the machine for the time being.

I hope this can be of help to those that embark on buying an old hand cranked splitter

If anyone is interested this is the passport wallet I made with the splitter