Skiving leather is probably one of the most difficult skills you’d have to master in leatherwork. Having the best skiving knife greatly makes a huge difference in the quality of skiving even if you don’t have an advanced level mastery in skiving leather.
But the number and variety of skiving knives when you search on the internet can be bewildering. So, In this article, I did a research on the best skiving knives for leather and here are the best of the best I found.
So, what are the best skiving knives for leather? The best skiving knife for leather in no particular order are;
- BANYOUR Leather Knife Cutting Knife
- Kyoshin Elle Japanese Slanted Skiver Knife
- Osborne 67-1 All Purpose Leather Skiving Knife
- Ceramic Blade Cutting Knife
- Tandy Super Skiver
- Tandy Leather Super Skiver 3025-00
Before we head on to the best skiving knife for leather, what do we know about skiving knife?
What’s a Skiving Knife?
A skiving knife is a tool used to reduce the thickness of leather. It can also be used for shaving thin layers off leather and even out the surface of leather.
In leatherwork, you’re likely to skive the edges of leather so that you can easily glue, stitch or thong two or more pieces of leather while maintaining even leather thickness.
Check out an article I wrote earlier on all the major reasons why you will skive leather.
Although the majority of skiving will be done with a machine even professionals need skiving knives for certain portions of the leather where the machine cannot reach. Here, there’s still the need for good quality skiving knife to skive just like or even better than the machine does. So, let’s delve into the details on what the best skiving knife for leather is. This is presented in no particular order!
1. Leather Knife Cutting – (Best Budget Multi-purpose)
- Material: Steel / wooden handle
- Product Weight: 2.88 ounces
- Product Dimensions: 3.9 x 0.2 x 0.2 inches
To save a bunch of cash on having to buy multiple tools, you’d need this skiving knife that can be used as a cutting knife and edging knife. It’s great for both beginners and professionals and can be used to cut and skive leather and many types of materials.
It has a wooden handle Leather and a steel blade. It gets the job done nicely and smoothly. It can be used both in your left and right hands and it’s designed to fit comfortably in the hand of the user.
Pros:
- It’s easy to use and control
- Cheap
- Easy to sharpen
- Has other purposes apart from skiving
Cons:
- Requires frequent sharpening as it dulls quite quickly
If you’re interested in a skiving knife that doubles as a perfect cutting and edging knife, the price is at the low end. You can find it over here for the latest price on Amazon!
2. Kyoshin Elle Japanese Slanted Skiver Knife – (Best Multi-Purpose Skiver)
- Material: Iron / wooden handle
- Product Weight: 3.2 ounces
- Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 2.2 x 0.9 inches
The skiving knife is carefully finished with a traditional fire-building process with excellent knife sharpness for all weight of leather.
This skiving knife is a great skiving knife that has a peculiar slanted edge that gives it a better curve cut. It can be used for skiving and cutting straight lines. It particularly works best on wide width leather materials.
Pros:
- Durable
- Great for skiving, cutting straight, and cutting curves
- Easy to use
- Easy sharpen
Cons:
- A bit Pricy for those on budget
If you’re interested in a skiving knife that also doubles as a suitable knife for cutting perfect curves and straight lines, this skiving knife is on the high end. You can check it out over here for the latest price via this link on Amazon.
3. Osborne 67-1 All Purpose Leather Skiving Knife – (Best all Purpose Skiver)
- Material: Steel / wooden handle
- Product Weight: 4 ounces
- Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 2 x 1.5 inches
This is your go-to skiving knife and all kinds of additional functions you’d also want your knife to perform. It’s made from high-quality steel with a round beveled sharped edge. You will love this skiving knife for its durability and simple but multi-purpose design.
This skiving tool is great for thick leathers as well as very thin leathers. It can also be used to skive around wide width surfaces.
Pros:
- Multi-purpose knife
- Easy to use
- Skives thin leathers great
Cons:
- Require a bit of sharpening skills due to the curved edge
If you’re interested in this all-purpose skiving knife, you can check it out over here for the latest price on Amazon.
4. Ceramic Blade Cutting Knife – (Best Curved Cutting Edge Skiver)
- Material: Steel / wooden handle
- Product Weight: 4.6 ounces
- Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 10.4 x 1 inches
This skiving knife is for both professionals and amateurs leather craftsmen and women. It’s a ceramic knife made from toughened zirconia ceramic. This gives it its high durability and super resistance to wear.
You will enjoy the solid wooden handle designed to give you maximum comfort. The producers of this skiving knife in addition to the tool designed a storage box for easy and convenient storage. This is your ideal skiving and general cutting knife.
Pros:
- Curved cutting edge
- Due to the curved edge, it cuts straight lines very well
- Can be used for both the pull and the push skiving methods
- Easy to store
- Great for general cutting and skiving
Cons:
- Due to its curved edge, it will take quite some time to get used to how it’s used to skive
- Require a bit of sharpening skills due to the curved edge
If you’d be interested in this skiving knife, you can check it out over here for the latest price on Amazon.
5. Tandy Super Skiver – (Best Safety Skiver)
- Material: Steel
- Product Weight: 4.8 ounces
- Product Dimensions: 1.8 x 0.1 x 6.8 inches
This commonly known by Tandy leather company as the craft tool super skiver. The Tandy super skiver features heavy-duty construction, a perfectly contoured handle for a comfortable grip and it comes with 10 sharp extra blades.
The Tandy super skiver works great for both the edges and strip skiving. You can particularly use the super skiver to skive belts, wallets, watch straps, and pretty much most small leatherwork projects. You can also use it to skive the edge of large projects as well.
The super skiver skives most thicknesses of leather without cutting too deeply. It gives you the perfect skives leaving you satisfied with the exact thickness of leather you’d want.
This is a typical skiving tool for the pull skiving method and is super safe to use.
Pros:
- Very safe to use
- Comes with 10 extra blades
- It can skive all thickness of leather
- Easy to replace blades
- Perfect for beginners
Cons:
- Not ideal for skiving wide surfaces
- Needs a bit of practice
If you’re interested in this tool, you can check it out over here for the latest price on Amazon! You can also visit TandyLeather for Sale and promotion offers.
6. Tandy Leather Super Skiver 3025-00 – (Best Lightweight Safety Skiver )
- Material: Steel
- Product Weight: 0.64 ounces
- Product Dimensions: 0.5 x 0.5 x 6.5 inches
This is Tandy leather’s safety skiver and its a typical hand skive beveler that uses the injector razor blade. It also comes with 10 pack replacement steel blades.
It is designed in a unique shape to prevent you from cutting too deeply or making unnecessary deep skives easily. It’s a very simple easy to carry skiving tool. The Tandy leather safety or super skiver is ideal for making long or short skives, edge skives, and wide surface skives. It’s very safe to use hence the name safety skiver.
Pros:
- Very safe to use
- Perfect skiving tool for beginners
- Lightweight tool
- Comes with 10 replacement blades
- Perfect for pull skiving method
Cons:
- Can take a lot of time to skive with
- Must take extreme precaution when changing the blade
You can check out this skiving knife on Amazon. However, you can also check it out on the Tandy leather official website for promo prizes.
Related Questions
Why do you skive leather?
The reasons why crafters skive leather is to reduce the thickness of leather especially leathers for pockets or areas of leather that will be bent or folded, or leather required to be pliable without weakening. Skiving is done on the underside or flesh side of the leather.
How do you use a leather skiver?
There are two basic ways to skive leather, and it involves the pull or push method. The pull method is when you use skiving knives like Tandy Super Skiver to skive by pulling the skiving knife towards you to skive and the push method is when you use skiving knives like Kyoshin Elle Japanese Slanted Skiver Knife to skive away from you.
Skiving leather is very simple and the skiving method you use depends on the type of skiving knife you buy. However, despite the two basic skiving methods described above, you can as well skive however you want in whichever direction as long as you are getting the thinness in leather you want and safety.
How do you sharpen a skiver knife?
You can simply sharpen a skiving knife with a 1200 grit water sandpaper or a stropping block. When sharpening a skiving knife with sandpaper, use a spray-on contact adhesive on the back of the sandpaper and glue it to a marble slab. Wet the sandpaper slightly, position your skiver at about 30 degrees and strop. You can also buy a stropping paddle and use with is also very easy to do by following the instructions on the package.
You can find the stropping paddler here and the 1200 grit sandpaper here on Amazon!
Related Articles:
- Leather Skiving Tools
- Why Do You Skive Leather?
- What is a Leather Skiving Machine?
- Parts of Skiving Machine: What they are, and Do!
- Pressure Foot For Skiving Machine: What’s it, Types & Functions