Skiving (pronounced “SKY-ving”) is a technique of thinning a piece of leather. When any leather projects require any folds or sewing, those sections that will become seams need to be thinned out. A skiver is used to perform this, and there are many different types of this tool that is consist of a blade to shave away any excess leather. It is pressed against the leather grain and with movement, shaving off a layer with pressure from holding the skiver.
So how do you skive properly what tools do you use? Let’s get into it.
What Exactly is a Skive?
A leather skiver is a tool with a wide sharp blade that can drag across the leather’s surface and remove thin layers at a time until one is fully satisfied with how the edges look. Skiving can control the way the edges can taper or remove sections from the middle of a piece of leather.
When making belts, for example, the leather that folds over where the buckle will be placed would double the overall thickness and therefore need to be thinned out. This is when you would need to skive the leather on both sides around the fold so when the folds are joined together it would appear to look like it is one layer thick. It also creates a cleaner look. The same can be applied to bag straps, saddles and any other leather piece that involves the folding of leather to create a consistent look and feel.
Types of Skivers
Skivers can be found as hand-held versions and they are manually drawn against the leather. Skivers are also available in tabletop versions. This is where the leather is pulled through the skiver through both a machine versions and manual version.
Manual Leather Skiver
Leather hand skivers, also known as a manual leather skiver, are hand-operated tools for removing thin layers of leather material. They have sharp blades that are either flat or curved. They are drawn across the leather with downward pressed pressure. As the blade drags across, thin layers are removed.
Flat blades with shave evenly, curved blades shave more towards the center of the blade and cut deepest into the material. Curved blades are best used for cutting curved areas or a portion of leather where more control is needed.
Leather Skiver Knife
A leather skiver knife is used to shave off thin layers of leather material. These knives are shaped with a handle and have a rectangular blade that is sharpened on the short end. This is for the purpose of pushing the leather to shave it away. This knife can be used as an edge skiver as well.
Blades are found with having flat or angled ends. Some are beveled that allow added control over the thickness of the leather. Angle-bladed knives are known as “lap skiving” knives. Using knives to skiv the leather takes skill and patience along with agility that would work wonderfully on small pieces and aid in detailed skiving work in tight places.
Tabletop Skivers
Leather tabletop skivers are table-mounted leather thinning machine tools that deliver consistent results and can be fitted with 6” – 10” blades and adjusted to various skiving heights.
To use a tabletop skiver, once the height is set and the leather is placed under the blade, a lever is lowered to secure the leather. The leather is then pulled through and what comes out at the other end will match what is set per the measurements of the skiver.
The bonus of working with a device that produces set consistent results is that the measurements can also be readjusted to change the thickness of leather if it is being used to make a belt. When the ends need to be thinned for belt folds, it is easy to feed the leather through after changing the measurements again to create a cleanly thinned out piece. What could take hours to create this and be consistent can easily be made much quicker and easier with a tabletop skiver.
Skiving Leather Machine
A skiving leather machine is an electrically-powered leather thinning machine. Others are manually operated like a tabletop skiver, but an electric skiver can produce even faster results. These are often tabletop or bench-top machines that have blade options such as shaped and straight.
Electric machines tend to have a feed mechanism that will let the leather go through a grip system as the pre-measured skiving does its work. These machines work well in high-volume work such as bags, luggage and boots.
Out of the variety of skiving tools, removing leather takes skill and practice. At some point, someone skilled in leatherwork and specifically skiving will have their own preference of tools and a collection of what they like to use.
How to Skive
Leather can be skived with a sharp having skiving knife. The active word here being sharp, and a steady hand movement is needed when working along the leather edge. Adding another piece of scrap leather on top of the edge being skived can help keep the leather from moving during the cutting process. Always a good idea to practice skiving on scrap leather and placing an additional piece to gauge your hand pressure when drawing your hand along the edge with the blade. When trying to bevel an edge, a leather beveler can be best used.
To thin out leather, a skiving knife will come in useful. It can be pushed along the edge and shave away thin layers until you are satisfied with the result of thickness you want.
Essentially, skiving will take practice to get a grasp on your handling of the blades. With the ease of sliding against the texture and thickness of leather, you’ll pick up how much pressure you would need to apply that will cut the leather to your liking. Once you are comfortable, a good skiving knife would be a strong tool to have in your leatherworking collection to build the skill before moving on to other blades, knives and tabletop devices.
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