Tandy swivel knives

[CutThumb]

Hi, just thinking about buying my first swivel knife, and have a limited budget of around £30 ($40]. There are some Tandy Ergo knives on eBay, new but reduced from £50. Is this is a decent knife? And is it easy to buy blades for? I’m coming at this from a place of absolute ignorance! Don’t know if blades are interchangeable or proprietary.  

Havent seen any second hand leatherwork gear for sale in the UK...

[NVLeatherWorx]

I have been using the Tandy Ergo knife barrels for quite some time and find that they are actually quite comfortable to use.  I have found that the knife blades are pretty much interchangeable so you should not have any issues with that.  Anytime you buy a new knife or blade you want to strop the living you know what out of it because they do not have a great edge out of the box.  Your budget is exactly what they sell for here in the U.S. but you may be able to find something on Amazon as well or do some searches for some leather working groups on your side of the pond and see what they have to say; local resources are more likely to have some hidden little secrets that they are willing to share.

Welcome to the trade.

[chrisash]

Hi

Lepravo are a good UK company for many leather tools as well as leather and other bits, so worth a look

http://www.leprevo.co.uk/knives.htm

[jcuk]

You might want take a look at these people seem to be a Tandy reseller but sometimes 

there prices are better not always though.

Can not help you with how good the swivel knife is, i do not do any carving.

 

https://www.identityleathercraft.com/index.php/embossing-carving.html

Hope this helps

JCUK

 

[CutThumb]

Thanks for the answers, everyone. I’ll give the Tandy a go. I have a good sharpening and stropping set-up, as I carve wood, so I’ll see hw I get on with the blade. Thanks for the links, too

[battlemunky]

If you can sharpen you should be good @CutThumb but the leather is a lot happier with a properly polished blade. I go the extra for my leather sharps. But yeah, if you are accustomed to sharpening for wood, you should be pretty set for leather. You feel a difference.

Actually, it'll be a good lesson....take whatever swivel knife you end up with right out of the package to some scrap leather and feel how it works, then do the same thing after you hone it and polish it. Even in between, try it and feel how the blade progresses. Edge quality is noticeable when carving wood; it is RIDICULOUSLY noticeable when carving leather.

[CutThumb]

7 hours ago, battlemunky said:

If you can sharpen you should be good @CutThumb but the leather is a lot happier with a properly polished blade. I go the extra for my leather sharps. But yeah, if you are accustomed to sharpening for wood, you should be pretty set for leather. You feel a difference.

Actually, it'll be a good lesson....take whatever swivel knife you end up with right out of the package to some scrap leather and feel how it works, then do the same thing after you hone it and polish it. Even in between, try it and feel how the blade progresses. Edge quality is noticeable when carving wood; it is RIDICULOUSLY noticeable when carving leather.

Thanks. Are there superior makes of blades I should look out for? 

[NVLeatherWorx]

28 minutes ago, CutThumb said:

Thanks. Are there superior makes of blades I should look out for? 

I prefer what are called Hollow Ground as they have less thickness to them and the concave sections reduce the drag through the leather.

[battlemunky]

Also, you may want to go with a less steep angled grind to begin with, it'll help keep you from going too deep when you start cutting. There are a few different trains of thought on carving and one of them is to "cut less/bevel more" by our own @immiketoo. Now, Mike is ridiculously talented so there is a ton of merit to this philosophy. Trying to keep from cutting too deep and exposing core leather is what the gist is and then using bevelers and modeling spoons more. Give the below video a good view and see if that appeals to you and then think about the blade choice.

 

[CutThumb]

Thanks, that’s an interesting watch. I’m using a scalpel at the moment, so any blade would be an improvement! I’ll see hw I get on with Tandy one, then try a wider angled blade.

 

And tha Anka, Richard, I’ll look into those too.