Making and sharpening skiving knives

I have been messing round with wood, leather and metal for over 50 years, however, none of that makes my opinion better than others (or even well informed). So, with that caveat aside, I just watched Phil’s latest video on (among others), skiving. I have made a few skiving knives, and I’m generally pleased with the outcome.

You can put an edge on almost anything (paper cuts anyone), but harder materials do give better blades. I think that almost any steel will give you an edge capable of skiving. It is true though that harder steels will give a finer edge, and a longer lived one as well. On the subject of longevity, I don’t have a problem frequently stropping my blades. If I am doing something which requires my attention, then I’ll grab my blades and strop, then strop away while looking at something more important (like Scotland versus France in the Six Nations). Thus, I am not particularly hung up on the quality of the steel. I think that a professional leather worker might find stropping too often to be a problem, but if that were the case, investing in a bell knife skiver could be a better solution.

I got the idea of the dinner knife skiver from a book binding YouTube. Book binders use really thin leather, and I find this blade to be very good for that application. The YouTuber said he tries to find older, carbon steel dinner knives rather than stainless, but there are lots of good stainless chef’s knives, so I am happy with the result. After making those, I remembered my dad’s old putty knife, which is carbon steel. That worked out well too.

The big issue with steel selection is heat treating or heat tolerance. Unless you want to spend a lifetime of learning, use steel that is already heat treated. Re-purposed utensils will already be heat treated to suit their application. If you Google high speed steel billet, you’ll find suppliers, but even easier, look for knife making suppliers. They sell blade billets in every conceivable alloy, as well as Damascus steel. I agree with Phil, plain old HSS is good for what we want. Have a conversation with the knife maker supplier. They may shun the term HSS as being too pedestrian, but they’ll have something that looks and smells like HSS, and probably quacks too.

Initial shaping of the billet is easily accomplished with a belt sander or a grinder. This is where heat tolerance is important. It easy to overheat the blade when it starts to get thin. With a grinder, a cup of water and frequent dipping (the blade, not the user) reduces this risk. In the US, Harbor Freight sell a hand held belt sander for $40 and a bench top one for $53. They have a grinder for $40. These are not high quality tools but they are fine for the type of infrequent use I imagine most of us are interested in. Grinders are typically sold with very coarse stones mounted, 80/120 is common. You can get the initial shape with that but for the bevel, you would have to be very careful of heat build up. I use a belt sander, and purchased some 600 belts for the last half of the bevel shaping. Most countries seem to have retail outlets which sell these cheap Chinese tools.

Now on to sharpening. My skiving was always poor, so I avoided it. I didn’t know if it was technique or the sharpness of the blade (it was both). I saw Phil’s video on the worlds cheapest skiving knives and thought why not. That was an eye opener. I finally had a sense of what a really sharp blade feels like. That may seem strange to many, we sharpen a blade, test it with a finger, thumb or finger nail, and it’s sharp right? That’s what I always did, but I found out it wasn’t sharp (enough). So I went back to the blades and looked really closely at them. What I found was there were places on the blades which weren’t as sharp as they should be. This appreciation came from using my eyes rather than my thumb. I hold the blade under a good light and focus on the cutting edge. What I found were reflective anomalies, facets in the cutting edge. I rotated the blades in every conceivable direction to spot these problem areas. The solution depends on how much metal has to be removed to fix the problem. I try to avoid going back to the belt sander because it might fix the problem but cause others. I use a diamond plate (600, 1000) or a strop. I have a second strop which has black emery buffing compound on it. That removes material more slowly that the diamond plates, but faster than the polishing compound. I go back and forth to the polishing compound in order to get a good reflective surface. That tells me if the problem has been removed. Once the edge is good, I find that the polishing compound strop is all I need to maintain it.

Now all I have to do is master technique!