Skiving Machine ripping my leather

[RockyAussie]

What type of skiver have you got?

A picture of the machine close up to the foot and the feed wheel would help a lot to best answer your problem.

Soft spongy leather will often not feed through without occasionally gathering up and doing this problem. A (little) silicone spray will help.I have a fortuna and a fav but because of the scraping I got with normal feet on glazed crocodile I have adapted up feet to have a brass roller at the front part of the foot shaped opposite in shape the feed roller. This then rolls instead of sliding and helps a fair bit with soft leathers as well. Also I have replaced the steel grooved feed wheels with the fine stone type. After sharpening and before skiving soft leather get some middle firm scrap and very slowly take it through this help to smooth out any roughness a bit like polishing your knives after sharpening. If you need pictures let me know. Hope this is of some help.

Regards Brian F