Picking the correct bell skiver

[howlback]

Attempting to get more serious into garment manufacturing... In deconstructing a few bags, I’ve found most folded edges are skived and then glued to a shaped card stock. I want to make bags out of suede and lighter veg tan leather but I am unsure which skiving machine I should be looking at. I see a lot of manufacturers I’m inspired by using the old fortunas. Figured I’d turn to the forum to seek out advice on what I need to look for in a skiver for this type application.

[RockyAussie]

garment leather can be quite difficult to skive at first and I will say 2 things that I believe important- 1 make sure it has an extractor/suction to pull the leather away from being caught up on the stone. (Stone is way better on the soft fine skiving) 2. A roller foot helps to eliminate the drag when feeding through. If it grabs at all it is needing a sharpen. Couple more- After sharpening with the stone get a bit of mellow veg and very slowly feed it through as this acts a bit like a strop and helps it run through more smoothly. I have an old Fortuna and a FAV  and I do like the Fortuna the best.Here is another post that have a couple of videos in it that may help.