English Paring Knife / Skiving Knife

The English style Blanchard is fine as long as like Philip said you know how to sharpen it first. The steel used is not harder than soda can metal but is very easy to sharpen, strop and get really sharp. So it’s ok if like me you are not in high volume skiving and can strop every two or three skives.

You can get the exact same one in HSS steel from china toolmakers (very nice ones) at a lower price. Will be sharper and stay like that longer....

I think much of the bad wrap Blanchard get with their knives is due to having to sharpen the blade almost from scratch before use. The modern crafter just isn't expecting to have to do this anymore.

I always roll my eyes when I see bad reviews on a blade because 'it wasn't sharp right out of the box'. Back in the day, no leatherworker would have expected a blade to come with anything more than a 'serving suggestion' of an edge.

Another issue is that many of Blanchards knives come with a 12° taper which is better suited to the paring of thin skins and chrome tanned leathers which makes up the bulk of fine french leatherwork.

So when Joe Vegtan gets hold of one and hacks away at his Horween with it, guess what his user experience review is going to read like!

Paring 0.8mm chrome tanned lambskin:

This knife is made from HSS steel and it is not easy for the beginner to sharpen.

Regarding the English paring knife in the course, it is 1085 carbon steel @ 55hrc and you will need to invest quite a bit of time sharpening as mine came ROUGH. It is no longer made, so it is not going to be a reliable source for the courses, but some places do pop up with old stock.

The Blanchard knife I have linked in the Course Supplies page is still made and is easy to sharpen and is also of the English style, which I find to be the best overall.

I hope this helps.

Phil

This is the knife I bought: It's doing a good job so far. http://abbeyengland.com/Store/CategoryID/442/List/0/catpageindex/2/Level/a/ProductID/77309

Hi, I'm quite happy with this one (great price). With Philip's tips on sharpening, works ok for me.

https://www.hewitonline.com/English_Paring_Knife_p/tl-070-pk.htm

Off my head, I would recommend Terrick's (Chartermade) knives to anyone. So far from all the knives from different designs and makers, his is probably the 'best' in that category (skiving only) for a couple of reasons. That is because I do not believe there is ever the best, since everyone has their own preference and the needs vary too.

As for edge retention, Terrick's knife is average, since his reason is pretty logical, you should be stropping from time to time and sharpening the knife from time to time. His idea of a knife being easy to maintain, i.e, stropping with ease, seems to be quite true from a leather crafter's perspective since you would not be out and about in the wilderness and mostly have sharpening media lying beside you.

I think Blanchard tools truly embodies the idea of the crafter 'doing his homework', which translates to knowing how to sharpen and maintain the knife from the get go (a lot of vintage tools have that too). That means they don't have the best steel or edge retention and you as the crafter have to know to use or 'manipulate' them to produce the best results.

Anyways, couple of things in my own checklist for getting a good knife.

1. You have to really to know how to sharpen and strop. This is really important as it doesn't matter how good the knife is, once it's dull and you can't bring it back to razor sharpness, it is probably as good as a brick (so to speak). Even Blanchard knives can be crazy good if you know to sharpen it. I guess Philip does a good job with his course in sharpening. But personally, I'd go higher in grits, I love the knife edge having that nice polished reflection.

2. Type of steel. This one is probably quite hard to pin down as everyone has their opinion on it. I break it down to a few categories.... a. edge retention b. toughness c. corrosion resistance d. thickness of blade. Usually for A, most would recommend moderate edge retention so that you do not need to sharpen/strop that often and yet you can do so with ease (usually the vanadium content dictates this). And also because for craft work, we are mostly in our work bench within reach of sharpening media. Personally, I go slightly higher if I could, hence I like M390 for a reason (but Terrick's knives are N690 and D2 I think), with higher vanadium content so that you can less sharpening stropping but not too absurdly high till you need really high end abrasives (like diamonds, CBN, etc) to get the max results. For B, you do not really need that kind of toughness since craft work requires mostly slicing of leather (which is soft) compared to chopping wood or bones or harder materials. For C, it depends on where you live and how many times you used the knife on a regular basis. Like for me, I use 'stainless' ( 14% or more chromium content) knives since where I live is super humid (RH 70-90%, Singapore) and plus the fact that I do not use knives on regular basis as crafting is my side hustle. If you live in drier area, you do not need this property, which makes opens up more types of steels you can explore. For D, I would say the best for craft work is a thinner blade, around 1.5 to 2+ mm (not sure about imperial, you can look up conversion), because you're mostly slicing leather which thinner blades excel at.

3. Balance of the knife. Terrick's knife for example has a good weight to it, not so heavy nor too feather-like lightness and the CG of it is at around the area of the ferrule. So that means you can hold the knife comfortably since your fingers would wrap around that spot most of the time.

4. Finish of the blade. His knife for example, has really good finish and edges of it smooth. I find that blades should not be super polished to mirror shine especially for skiving/paring knives since you would be holding onto the blade most of the time, having that makes it really slippery to hold. The edges should be bevelled so that you would not feel like the edges are biting onto your skin. This is mainly for paring knives as you're gripping tightly onto the blade.

5. Edge geometry and heat treatment. I prefer paring knives to have a wide secondary bevel so that the knife edge can taper down a really thin edge. Heat treatment is important too, properly done would mean you be pulling the maximum potential out of that knives's steel, plus it affects entire property of the steel.