I use the round knife always now. It makes freehand cutting so easy. It holds a straight line and cuts cutting time in half. It's sped up my work to a point where I don't use any other knife. I do still use a "japanese" style knife to skive smaller pieces. But the round or head knife is by far the most superior tool for corners and long straight cuts. I think people are scared to use it because noone is teaching how to use it on RU-vid. Its use is very simple. To sharpen it is very hard but maintaining it is easy. It takes a lot of time to get its very 1st sharpen and it's easy to make mistakes. But strop working it is simple. I genuine think it would be the most popular knife if somone with full understanding of it made a how to video. Im not good at making videos and Australian creators never get traction so it would most likely be a waste of my time. But I urge you all to try using one. A good quality one and not too big. The one in the video is too large unless you're making saddles. Practice on medium thickness leather 1st and think about surface areas as you experiment. The amount of blade that is in contact with the amount of leather. Ithink that is the key to understanding the style of knife.
Having a good knife makes leathercraft so much easier. I like the shirogami (#2) skiving knife that RM Leather sells. It's very easy to sharpen to a razor edge with entry level sharpening materials. Shirogami is known for it's top notch ease of sharpening. If you can't get the shirogami, I would settle for M2, D2, definitely not DC53, SKD11, or VG10. If you have a big budget, and are looking for something top of the line, there is only M390 readily available. Unfortunately, modern steels are not being made for leathercraft but there are smiths that can do it.
It’s interesting that you mentioned both skiving and paring. I live in the UK and as well as leather-working I also do bookbinding. I’ve found that - in the UK anyway - leather workers will say skiving and bookbinders will say paring. It’s effectively the same thing, although bookbinders are usually paring much thinner, more flexible leather.
like your video try to not miss any episode. currently i am thinking buy another skiving knife, no matter how many skiving knife in my rack, i always think i miss one.
Come on Jun! We're waiting for the next section! Honestly, your left handedness is a bit confusing when looking at the bevels on these knives. I imagine as a lefty in a righty world, you're used to flipping images and concepts in your head, but as a righty, I'm not used to doing this, so when you're talking about skiving with the angled blade, it was very confusing. And I don't know if you were trying to show skiving motions for righties, but with a lefty blade... I don't know, I was confused by that section, maybe around 19:40 ish. So, we're eagerly awaiting the actual demo! As an aside: Do you know a seller of an affordable, but still high quality steel, cobbler's paring knife, the ones with an overall curved blade, and a bevel on only one side? We've only made one pair of boots, which was VERY difficult, I think mainly because of a poor choice in leather, but we'd like to return to shoe making as part of our practice. We've identified key areas in our leatherwork where we struggle, either with poor results or greater time expenditure, and so have purchased some higher quality tools to improve our results and to quicken the process. One such tool is a Kemovan DC53 straight skiving knife (skiving gives us fits, so usually end up finishing our skives on a power sander). Do you have any experience with Kemovan tools, or more specifically this DC53 skiving knife? What do you think for DC53 as a skiving knife steel? How about for other applications? I know you love your Chartermade skiver, I can't recall, do you prefer the slightly curved version, or a purely straight bevel? Just curious! I'm going to comment to this comment with a link to the Kemovan Etsy store where the Skiver is located. I hope this doesn't cause problems with RU-vid or violate your wishes. If so, feel free to delete the proceeding comment, or ask us, and we'll delete it if you'd prefer not to have a link to Kemovan. And if our link personally identifies us, please let us know immediately! I can't find a way to automatically link to the product, so just am pasting the address from our address bar! Thanks for your vids Jun!
OK what's the deal with the wuta brand knives. I ordered a right hand and got a left. They claim it's correct. I can't skive with the blade high point to the right with my right hand?
Do you know off anyone who makes left handed knives similar to the first one in the self made knives? thats what im looking for but im coming up empty on left handed knives >.> skiving left handed with right handed knives isnt working out very well for me
Hi, May I ask you about the thickness of the steel. I know that generally producers use 2mm thick steel. but I saw some producers use 3mm thick. Which one do you think its better for skiving knife 3 or 2mm? Thanks.
