Any recommendations for an inexpensive benchtop leather splitter? Ideally, I’d find something with replaceable or serviceable blades for a whole lot less than the cost of an Osborne 86 or 5-in-1.
I’m coming around to admitting that the little welt mill I found online isn’t really giving the results that I want. Neither is it versatile enough for other needs. In particular, the stairsteps on mine are so tall as to be mostly useless for actual welts. The run of the mill itself is really only wide enough for welt strips, not top straps or backstraps.
There are no end of fixed-blade machines from China in online stores. I’ve also seen one or two that hold disposable blades, like Olfa-style snap-off razors. But I’ve no direct experience with any of them.
I use this one. It’s identical to the one tandy sells for twice as much. I got it because several people on the leatherworking group recommended it. Once sharpened it makes a very consistent split. Make sure to use a test piece; Since it’s a pull type machine, the leather thins a little bit as it stretches and so the final thickness of the leather once tension is removed will be a little bit more than the actual gap between the blade and the roller
This is more or less what I ended up with. The paint on mine is black, but otherwise it looks the same.
I’ve done some tests, but not enough to pass judgment on it yet.
Another tip, this one to me from Jeff Mandel, was to cut any strips or welts I plan to skive longer than finished length. Apparently it’s common for thickness to veer off toward the end, pulling a long strap.
A tip I can offer is that it might make more sense to rub a paddle strop over the blade, like a file, rather than the blade over the strop. I have it in my notes to try remounting the blade backwards in the frame, so the blade faces out the back, to do this next time.
I put the Chinese bench splitter to its first real test today, thinning down backstraps and tongues for my fourth pair. I decided to do standard, loose, non-gusset tongues from the upper leather this time, relying on the splitter to thin down.
One big takeaway: I had more trouble pulling the pieces through, especially the tongues, than I expected. Certainly more than I’d had with straps and belts on others’ splitters before. It really paid to think ahead about where I would start from the middle, to ensure I’d have enough to grip and pull on both sides.
I did a lot of fiddling with the set screws, relying on equal degrees of turn creating equal changes in set height on each side. In the end, I think this was for naught, as I was reliably setting and locking down the tension arm above the limit, basically using the leather itself as a squishy stop.
I ended up doing a lot of splitting, then splitting thinner, then splitting thinner again, rather than setting for one thickness and doing a single pull. I was worried about being able to pull the tongue pieces through against that much resistance. Perhaps the better approach was to set the screws precisely where I wanted the depth set, crank the handle until it hit those screws, lock down, and pull through all at once.