Used straight or round knife on a budget - brands?

[zuludog]

A Japanese leather knife is held vertically in your fist with the bevel facing outwards, away from your palm, and the larger or trailing part of the asymmetric blade facing away from you. 

Thus in the picture a left handed person would use the black handled knife

In use, the bevel faces the good side of the leather and the flat side faces the waste

Try holding a ruler or a pencil vertically in your fist and extending your arm slightly. It's quite difficult to hold it perfectly vertical; there is a tendency for your wrist to turn and for the pencil to slant outwards at the top and inwards at the bottom. Because of this the bevel is vertical even if the blades slopes slightly, and so the cut is vertical.

Have a look at this video, he shows it well enough 'How to Use Japanese Leather Knife' by Leathertoolz

[GeneH]

Yep, I would have been holding the flat to the good side - exactly backwards.

[GeneH]

Gotta say everyone contributed so much that helped me off the fence to a purchase decision. I sure hope my replies came across the way I intended: affirmation of the reply, checked out the suggestions, figured it out, relayed what I learned, etc. I’m sometimes concerned I might come across in some way that depreciates you’re time spent posting  ideas and opinions. 

We shall see what this knife brings to the table and go from there! 

[ I’m going to keep an eye out for a piece of industrial hack saw blade just to see what it can do... :-)  ]

Edited March 14, 2019 by GeneH

[Aven]

Gene, if you have some free time, check out this video and maybe give it a go.  The guy used some seriously basic hand tools and still turned out a good knife.

 

[bikermutt07]

Gene, Kevin will make you a left handed knife. I know he doesn't currently list one on eBay, but he has said it many times on his Facebook page. 

I am also a Lefty, but in a world of rightys this knife would not be a bad fit in the left hand. 

I'm sure the heat treat is fine. The small pattern knife I have from him is excellent. 

The more you deal with quality Chinese products the more you will like them.

You will find their pricing in-between classic Chinese junk and American pricing. The only two I have really dealt with is Wuta and Kevin in leather tools. My pattern knife from Kevin is used but it is a great knife. I have another tiny hawkbilled knife from him on the way.

I never pulled the trigger on a Wuta knife because I haven't really needed any that he offered. As a matter of fact Wuta only started offering a knife in the last year or so and I was already tooled up so to speak.

Most of my Chinese knife experience has been with Kizer pocket knives. They are rivaling people like Benchmade and others at a 3rd of the cost.

I have owned 4 of their knives in VG-10 and sv35. They are well designed and executed work horses. They hold an edge and some of them sport nice titanium frames with really smooth action.

I have been really happy with these pocket knives.

Who knew China could produce such products if given the chance?

[TomWisc]

We all have our favorite knives and I kinda like this one. I paid $1.00 for it at a resale shop. It was covered in tar, probably used for scraping roofing tools or something. It was dull, no edge, just a cheap scraper. It called out to me, probably the price. After cleaning the tar off and sharpening it ,I thought it might work for something. The blade is a little curved at the edges and that makes it work well for cutting very thin leather since I can sort of roll it over the leather and not have to pull it to cut. I strop it often and it maintains a good cutting edge. Probably not great grade of steel but it works great for what I use it for.

And for $1.00 I smile every time I use it!

[GeneH]

Glad to hear that a right hand knife will do just fine in my left. IMO the more mainstream the less likely to get a bum product. I try to stay with ambidextrous tools, left handed only when there’s a significant advantage.  Remember the stupid classroom desks with only a right half desktop? Ugh. Now THAT was a pain.  Someday I want a left hand Suji  or Deba from Japanese Knife Imports out in CA.

Gotta go look at a Kizer in SC35. My boys have just purchased Benchmade with SV 35 (or is it 30?) but darn nice edge retention. (Cutting up lots of corrugated cardboard)

[GeneH]

1 hour ago, TomWisc said:

We all have our favorite knives and I kinda like this one. I paid $1.00 ..,

And for $1.00 I smile every time I use it!

Those are the really fun finds. I’d love that one too for all the same reasons you do.

[zuludog]

I made my knives in a similar way to that in the video. To remind you I used an old box plane blade and a piece of 40mm hacksaw blade

A friend shaped & sharpened the blades on his bench grinder for the price of a pint. It is difficult to sharpen such thin hard steel so the bevel is a bit steep; I am gradually reducing this as I resharpen it by hand. Nevertheless it does the job. But having a sharp, polished cutting edge is the most important part

For the ferrule I used a piece of copper water pipe

The rest of the handle making was all done with hand tools - a small saw; drills; files, rasps, and sandpaper; and glued with 2 part epoxy

Some of the available knives have a curved edge to the upper part of the offset blade, but as you can see from the video, a straight line works just as well

One of the tools I used was a Shinto Japanese saw rasp - find them via Google and on YouTube; they're available from Amazon USA for about $17. These are excellent, and cut easily without clogging

If you're still interested you could think about making your own English style paring knife or Japanese KIRIDASHI knife, they're very similar. Search for kiridashi on the Net and YouTube

Edited March 14, 2019 by zuludog

[billybopp]

16 hours ago, zuludog said:

That's a fair comment. I started with a Stanley knife/craft knife/box cutter knife and still use it sometimes. It seemed to work better after I'd resharpened the blades with a fine oilstone and a strop; probably because that reduced the shoulder of the bevel and gave it a better polish

Whatever knife you get, you will need two - the first is for cutting leather. The second can be more or less anything you want. Use it for opening parcels, sharpening pencils, cutting string, and that sort of thing; its purpose is to make sure you use the first one exclusively for cutting leather

Yup!   More than one utility knife is a great idea for sure.   It doesn't work around here, tho.  I have several lying around, and just two that i try to keep reserved for leather work.  Yet somehow, with the ones reserved for "around the house" lying right out in plain sight, I always find my hidden leather knives out used to open packages all the damn time.   Amazing!

 

- Bill