Skiving strap ends

[trailrunner]

I know that skiving strap ends seems like a simple thing, but what I'm unsure of is where exactly are you supposed to start the skive?  I hear so many differing opinions on the proper technique, and I would love to hear from those who are experienced with this.  So for a buckle end, some people recommend to skive down the leather only at the very end, so that the part that actually is folded around the buckle is full thickness.  This doesn't make sense to me, since skiving is meant to reduce thickness, and the folded part is the thickest part by far.

 

Others recommend starting the skive where the leather is folded, and skiving down to say 6oz, if you have a 12oz strap.  But this doesn't make sense to me either, because if the strap is 12oz, and you skive the fold and everything toward the end to 6oz, then its folded over to become 18oz.  So wouldn't it be stronger to start the skive before the fold, and skive toward the end, at an even thickness of 9oz?  Then you would have two pieces of 9oz leather sewn together, rather than 1 piece of 12oz and one piece of 6oz.  This seems like it would be stronger, no?  So why do we always see people skive down only one side of the leather to say that's being folded over to say 6oz and leave the other side full thickness, instead of skiving both sides to 9oz?

 

So experienced strap makers, what is the proper way? 

Thanks in advance

[NVLeatherWorx]

You should skive the area that will be the entire buckle fold area.  In other words, if your buckle tine is punched through the fold at 1-1/2" then you should skive 3" so that the entire section where you mount your snaps (or whatever you are using to hold the buckle end together), your keeper, and the buckle is the thickness of the original strap.  I personally never follow the rule of skive half the thickness as I have never found it necessary, I skive maybe 1/3 the thickness so as to ensure that I am maintaining some strength and durability for the buckle end.

 

[trailrunner]

27 minutes ago, NVLeatherWorx said:

You should skive the area that will be the entire buckle fold area.  In other words, if your buckle tine is punched through the fold at 1-1/2" then you should skive 3" so that the entire section where you mount your snaps (or whatever you are using to hold the buckle end together), your keeper, and the buckle is the thickness of the original strap.  I personally never follow the rule of skive half the thickness as I have never found it necessary, I skive maybe 1/3 the thickness so as to ensure that I am maintaining some strength and durability for the buckle end.

 

Thank you.  That is exactly the information I was looking for.  I always thought that made the most sense.  I agree on taking off about 1/3 as well.  Especially for shoulder straps for bags and such.  Makes the whole buckle area less bulky, without compromising much strength.