- Joined
- Nov 23, 2003
- Messages
- 773
While knife making and leather working, one of the tasks that have frustrated me the most has been skiving of leather. The lack of quality and flexibility in the commercially available tools for the task of thinning the ends of straps and edges of leather is astounding. I have tried the Tandy Leather Super Skiver, C.S. Osborne No. 925 Skife, and C.S. Osborne French Edge Skiving knives. Others have reported good results with these tool, but this has not been my personal experience.
I finally resorted to using a wide (expensive) version of Osborne French Edge tool as it was the best performing option for me for thinning edges. It is tricky to sharpen, but produced much better results than the Super Skiver or Skife (neither or which I could ever get to cut cleanly). In fact, I purchased two different Skife's and they both immediately bent beyond usefulness.
Alas!
I purchased an AEBL steel flex skiver knife from Dave Ferry (Horsewright). The design was apparently a result of Dave and Paul Long. In any case, this knife is robust, flexible, and easily sharpened. I am so excitingly pleased about how it performs and looks that I'd like to give a shout out to Dave and post a couple of photos of the knife.
My knife is the one handled in Ironwood. The other bone handled knife and round knife were apparently for other customers of Dave.
I finally resorted to using a wide (expensive) version of Osborne French Edge tool as it was the best performing option for me for thinning edges. It is tricky to sharpen, but produced much better results than the Super Skiver or Skife (neither or which I could ever get to cut cleanly). In fact, I purchased two different Skife's and they both immediately bent beyond usefulness.
Alas!
I purchased an AEBL steel flex skiver knife from Dave Ferry (Horsewright). The design was apparently a result of Dave and Paul Long. In any case, this knife is robust, flexible, and easily sharpened. I am so excitingly pleased about how it performs and looks that I'd like to give a shout out to Dave and post a couple of photos of the knife.
My knife is the one handled in Ironwood. The other bone handled knife and round knife were apparently for other customers of Dave.
