Swivel knife borders

[Alexis1234]

Thank you all for the help. I looked at the Barry King site. I've been slowly buying tools since December and can see I need to add a few. An update on this project(saddlebags): I tried correcting the cut lines this morning and some of them were soo wavy there was no way I could acceptably blend them in/ soften. The closer I looked, the worse they were,lol. I need to learn to cut straight!  So, it's back to square one. 

[Scootch]

One thing that can help with straightness is to buy a really wide blade for your swivel knife.  A wider blade is easier to keep straight for those long borders.  It also helps me to cut toward me so that I can see the sharpened edge that is not in the leather.  Making sure the exposed sharp point is on top of your scribe line will ensure your not fish tailing the cutting portion in the leather.  

Scootch

[Vikefan]

Alexis1234

 

Have you tried the the double Line push creasers that Osborne used to make.  brucejohnsonleather.com might have some used ones for sale?   I use a double lined one for the belts I make.

Hope that helps.

Vikefan

[Arturomex]

And there's always this from Tandy:  https://tandyleather.ca/collections/tools/products/craftool-hand-border-tool

Wouldn't load a photo but the link will show you a border tool much like an adjustable stitching groover except this holds a swivel knife blade. Cuts nice, straight lines. Handles curves quite well.

Regards,

Arturo

 

[fredk]

On 5/12/2020 at 8:57 AM, Retswerb said:

@fredk I’d love to see a pic of that. I’ve been swivel-beveling for a while now per @immiketoo but my hand gets awfully sore running the regular beveler tool along.

I got my materials mixed up. The nylon goes into the knife and into a hole in the delrin. The delrin is carved to the profile.

tbh I've only used these a couple of times as I don't do hardly any tooling or swivel knife work

1. this has one straight cliff edge and a slope to bevel

2. this has a centre bar, about 1 mm high by 1.5 mm wide and a slope on each side to bevel both sides of a line

B. The two together so you can see how I made them. Others could make them far better using a lathe and power tools but I don't have those things so I need to do it by hand

With these materials I can make any profile which suits me

[Retswerb]

Thanks @fredk! I’ll definitely have to try that, would be a huge improvement over gripping the regular beveler and running it along.

[Arturomex]

11 minutes ago, Retswerb said:

Thanks @fredk! I’ll definitely have to try that, would be a huge improvement over gripping the regular beveler and running it along.

Thanks indeed, Fred.

Regards,

Arturo

[immiketoo]

Seems like this is pretty will covered, but I’ll add this.  Part of your problem is that you’re cutting too deeply.  These line borders don’t have a lot of support once you cut both sides, and the grain can start to “peel” up on the cut edges.

for the most part, I don’t cut these borders anymore, rather I use a wing divider to score a deep line and leave it at that.

those push bevelers and beader blades are really difficult to control and it’s easy to mess up a piece of leather in a hurry.  The wing dividers afford a lot more control, and if you do need to cut them in, there’s a sweet channel to guide your swivel knife.

[immiketoo]

In these images, the border lines were cut after the dividers, then smoothed with a modeling spoon to round them off.