Ugh. I have tried my best to get some leather skived to an even consistency and not having any luck, just burning through leather as I try and teach myself. Does the Makerspace have a professional skiving tool and/or do any of the leatherworkers offer skiving as a service?
Have you tried the bench skiving tool? It is dangerous and tricky but good results are possible . Any of the leather instructors can help you get competent with the tool .
Okay, so there is a skiver at DMS? It wasn’t listed in the tools, so wasn’t sure.
The docs do seem lacking.
Here’s a recent Talk post about it…
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Yeah, there is a bench mounted splitter/skiver installed on the workbench in Creative Arts. I haven’t used it much, and had limited success with it.
You’re welcome to give this a go!
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This tool is kinda finicky, so I would definitely bring some practice leather. Like Mark, I’ve had some struggles as well.
I hope you resolved your issue, but I wanted to offer a little encouragement. Ignore me this is unwelcome.
Leather skiving is a skill that I have found to benefit, quickly, from regular practice. For me, it can sometimes be easy to forget to actually set aside a project and practice, especially with an expensive material like leather. I save every scrap of leather from every project I make, and whenever I am learning or refining a skill, out come the scraps.
The other thing to know with skiving is that, of course, you can’t have your tools too sharp. I recently realized, after my partner’s nice Japanese skiving knife just would not hold an edge, that I had been OVER stropping. I had no idea that was a thing! So I sat down with the sandpaper and glass and re-sharpened it, and quit stropping the thing so much. It’s holding an edge much better now and skiving has once again become enjoyable. If you think this could have happened, look for sort of a rounded curve at the edge profile.
Anyway, I hope you got your project taken care of 