Fortuna Skiving Machine ca. 1910

[TwoCelts]

We recently purchased this gem of a machine. It was working beautifully and now isn't so much. I have contacted Fortuna, C-R, amongst others, to no avail. Can anyone at all help me with this beautiful piece of lead that is now occupying precious space in my small shop? I need it to skive edges, as its supposed to do, but have been unable to find an actual 'destruction' manual for it. Fortuna themselves couldn't help me...... so ANY help will be appreciated. 

[Matt S]

@TwoCelts That's a nice looking early Fortuna. I have one a little newer, with the more rounded arm that comes from the middle back of the main casting, but many parts look identical to their counterparts on mine!

What fault(s) are you experiencing? Most issues can be sorted without having to strip the machine.

[TwoCelts]

Well, not much is working properly. The machine runs, it runs smoothly, but I cannot dial in the adjustment on the presser foot. It will skive way too much, tear the leather up or skive nothing at all. We have adjusted the sharpening stone, the position of the bell knife, etc. To no avail

[Sonydaze]

The bell knife needs to be positioned very close to the presser foot. Setup the bell distance (to the presser foot) then adjust the feed wheel so it aligns with the bell and doesn't quite touch it.

If the bell has been sharpened while too far from the presser foot, the bevel will be wrong and will need to be reground.  Use a felt pen to darken the ground edge on the bell, then try sharpening it see if it is removing the felt pen across the whole ground edge. If it doesn't, then grind it until it does grind all of the felt pen off.  Debur the edge with a pencil shaped stone to finish.

Hope this helps.

[Matt S]

3 hours ago, TwoCelts said:

Well, not much is working properly. The machine runs, it runs smoothly, but I cannot dial in the adjustment on the presser foot. It will skive way too much, tear the leather up or skive nothing at all. We have adjusted the sharpening stone, the position of the bell knife, etc. To no avail

Yeah they're finnicky things to get running right and it's easy to lose your place. 90%+ of what makes for an effective skive is having the right adjustments, and sadly there are basically no numbers to read or measure -- it's all don't qualitatively.

Have you seen Checaflo's video series on setting up and using skiving machines? He has a pretty good system at finding a "machine zero" and adjusting from there. Get lost in the weeds and just set everything back to your zero and start again. From what you say I think it's a setup/adjustment problem rather than having to take anything apart (well, at least if the knife is turning true, which if it worked recently... it probably is).

I'll also throw my +1 on Sony's comments behind getting your knife as close to the foot as possible. Again taking my leaf from Checaflo's book I measure the gap with a slip of printer paper. And further to Son'y comment on grinding the knife, the old boy I bought my skiver from taught me to only grind once everything is set up (same reason -- grinding angles). Then deburr the knife and sharpen and deburr again.

[jimi]

If you PM me your email, i can send you a manual in PDF.

[RockyAussie]

Some close up pictures of the set up would help. In your picture above it may be that your feed stone is not close enough to the bell cutting edge but that may be just the picture. The feed stone for most work should be parallel and all but touching the bell knife inside edge. IF doing heavy weight leather a little bit of a gap at the back can help sometimes. Parallel to the bell is set by the knob at the bottom left and if you pull that toward you you will see the feed stone tilt down at the back. The feed stone closeness to the bell is set by the knob at the back just before the spring tension adjustment. The bell should be set into the proper place before any adjustments are made and that should be done by moving the bell forward so that it is around .5mm (1/2mm) away from the presser foot edge. For fine leathers a little closer and thicker harder leathers a bit further away. Once the blade is in position sharpen until there are no nicks in the blade and then dress the bell inside with the dressing stone and then recheck the measurements look right. As I said before ...some close up pictures would help here.

[TwoCelts]

Thank you folks! I haven't had time to mess with it yet, but will update as I do.

[Logans Leather]

Talk to Ron Kay at RSK Sales (formerly Melanie Machine Co) they specialize in skivers of all brands and ages and would most likely be able to help you

818-468-0579

i have always found them to be very knowledgeable and helpful. 

[falseyellow]

Hello, excuse me, has your Fortuna Skiving Mashine been repaired? Are you considering selling it?

[Northmount]

15 hours ago, falseyellow said:

Hello, excuse me, has your Fortuna Skiving Mashine been repaired? Are you considering selling it?

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