What Knife You Use To Cut Leather?

[tossik]

Hi all,

Don't know if many remember, but I posted a couple of custom round knives that my brother created for sale last year and had great interest in them (despite few grumpy people).

I am in the process of designing a few knife styles for leather and wanted to see what people use most. What knife, what size, what would you want to see different, Do you guys skive a lot with a knife, or use a razor blade? Round knife or head knife?

Let me hear your opinions on your cutting tools.

Thanks!

[firestormhcg]

To be honest, my round/head knife and skiver sit on my tool rack and collect dust. I mainly use a rotary cutter for long straight cuts and wide curves, and I use an olfa snap off 9mm box cutter to cut all the rest.

[dirtclod]

Round and head knife. 4 inch or less a 5 inch knife gets you to far from work IMHO.

Edited March 25, 2015 by dirtclod

[zuludog]

I use a craft knife - 'Stanley knife' - but keep it exclusively for cutting leather. I've resharpened it several times so that it seems to be better than a new blade.

[cgleathercraft]

Usually use a razor knife. I spent 2 hours last weekend polishing my round knife to a mirror finish. It cuts way better now but haven't had a chance to actually cut out a project with it yet.

[humperdingle]

A large-handled "Stanley", carpet fitters' style knife. Blades are cheap, so are regularly changed.

[billybopp]

I have a variety of knives for different situations. My go to knife for cutting larger pieces of veg-tan is a nice heavy utility knife with high quality blades, which I strop to improve the edge even further than out of the box.

For finer detail cuts, I use an x-acto knife with either the z-line blades #11, or if the leather is a little thicker a curved scalpel type blade #10. The scalpel blades are less susceptible to bending and give a more perpendicular cut in thicker material.

For thinner and strechy leather, I use a Olfa large rotary cutter. ( I have both 45mm and 60mm rotary cutters, but mostly prefer the 60mm).

If I need a circle, I use an Olfa circle cutter.

For skiving belts and straps that are not too wide, I use a vintage Wilkro razor blade plane that I picked up on fleabay.

For skiving larger items, I use a tandy splitter or a safety skiver.

I also have a head knife, that I occasionally use for cutting and skiving, but it does not see a lot of use.

If I need a smaller piece of leather cut totally square, I use a rotary paper cutter such as this http://www.amazon.com/Fiskars-Classic-Rotary-Paper-Trimmer/dp/B000YAJHVE/

Heavy leather shears are often useful as well.

The shears, head knife and wilkro are the only ones that I actually bought specifically for leather work. I already had the others around the house for other various uses and projects.

Bill

[Fordpkup]

I use several knives. X-acto carpet knife, rotary. Mostly i use my case stock knife. Sometimes i use shears.

[Ferg]

I tried almost every style knife I could find. I do like the rotary for thin straight cuts.

Photos of one of the clicker knives I made with blade made by a professional knife maker on this forum.

This is of a straight blade, I have another with a curved blade. The handles are solid brass.

These knives cut any thickness of leather but do best in Veg Tanned. I strop before and during my cutting.

ferg

[Art]

I have bazillions of knives I have collected over the years, but for all but heavy leather, a clicker or detail knife is what I use the most. Surgical and post mortem scalpels are are second if not first. I use skiving knives (shoemaker type, just the blade wrapped with tape) and probably more often a scalpel. Look in the Weaver catalog for a blue handled clicker knife, under $20 or so. For scalpels, I like Swann-Morton (English company) handles and blades.

If you want something special, Terry Knipschield, in addition to traditional head knives, makes a beautiful curved detail knife that I use a lot in place of the clicker knife. It is more robust in the blade area. His skiving knife is also very very good. His knives all take a bleeding sharp edge and stay that way for a long time.

If you have to start somewhere, a knife by a good custom maker should be a choice fairly near the top of your list. If you get a good maker, you will use the knife forever and won't be on this constant quest for the perfect knife.

Art