what is the difference between a Paring and a skiving knife

[chrisash]

Just interested in what the difference is between these two leather types of blade

[bermudahwin]

Nowadays they seem synonymous, but skiving was used for reducing edges and their thickness, and paring was typically the whole  previously cut out piece (if you needed to pare all of the pieces you would get the skin split by the currier/leather merchant on one of the machines Matt S bought. (Note to self... see if Matt is up and running with that yet, and how much it would cost to split some hides down)

In bookbinding I will pare down the whole cover to say 0.6 mm, but then skive the corners with a diagonal cut down to 0.1 or 0.2 mm so that they 'disappear' when turned over on the cover boards.

I would use a skiving knife for skiving and a machine or adapted spokeshave for paring (a tedious job to so much leather whilst learning).

Most adverts I see for 'paring knives' look like various versions of skiving knives to me.

I now await other comments as I am unfamiliar with US terminology etc.

H

[zuludog]

Ah, I wonder if you've just been on the gandm tools website and seen their George Barnsley paring knives? I think it's mostly down to the name or category

A paring knife is a simple strip of steel, usually flat, but occasionally curved, rather like an overgrown Xacto knife or a scalpel, and similar to the Japanese kiridashi. Such knives can be used for skiving or paring, which are two names for the same thing - making leather thinner

But you can also skive leather with glorified chisels, which might have straight, rounded, or slanted cutting edges. These are always called skiving knives

Thus a paring knife is always the kiridashi type, whereas a skiving knife covers both the kiridashi and chisel types

Well, that was a bit rambling, I hope you can follow it

[Matt S]

I've wondered this same question a few times. I've noticed that they are fairly interchangeable but suspected that there are technical difference within certain trades. Thanks for bringing the topic up @chrisash!

 

1 hour ago, hwinbermuda said:

(Note to self... see if Matt is up and running with that yet, and how much it would cost to split some hides down)

I'm still building the phase converter, trying very hard to stop the smoke from escaping. There'll hopefully be an update somewhen next week.

I'll be happy to do some splitting for you or anyone else but I don't want to risk anybody's leather before I'm convinced that it's reliable!

[bermudahwin]

That is kind Matt.

2 minutes ago, Matt S said:

I don't want to risk anybody's leather before I'm convinced that it's reliable

With my other technical hat on, I could work out a disclaimer for you.

I have some dog lead leather that you could cut into bricks and build houses with, maybe we could 'play' with some of that when you are ready to try some heavy stuff.

5 minutes ago, Matt S said:

trying very hard to stop the smoke from escaping

So the exact opposite of a laser engraver? this may help

https://www.gocomics.com/back-to-bc/2019/01/22

a simple but effective method of smoke removal.

Best

H

[Matt S]

4 hours ago, hwinbermuda said:

With my other technical hat on, I could work out a disclaimer for you.

I have some dog lead leather that you could cut into bricks and build houses with, maybe we could 'play' with some of that when you are ready to try some heavy stuff.

So the exact opposite of a laser engraver? this may help

https://www.gocomics.com/back-to-bc/2019/01/22

a simple but effective method of smoke removal.

A disclaimer would be useful!

That leather sounds like fun. Should be able to put anything up to 5mm in the front of it. One of the main jobs I want to do with it is taking 4mm bridle down to about 1mm for wallet pockets and 2 for wallet backs.

The smoke was a reference to the idea that electrical things run on smoke. Wire them wrong and the smoke leaks out, whereupon they stop working. I'm trying very hard to keep the smoke in this machine.