Loading…
18
TIL my leather paring got 10x better after a guy at a bindery in Portland told me to stop sharpening my knife so much
I was at a small bindery in Portland picking up some board and complaining that my paring knife kept tearing up the leather on my covers. The old guy running the place asked how often I sharpen and I told him every few minutes, and he just laughed and said 'you're sharpening the burr right off, let the steel do the work.' I tried it his way, touch up maybe every 20 minutes on a strop and a light hone only when it actually drags, and my paring got way smoother with almost no skips. Turns out I was making the edge too fine and it would roll over on the grain side. Anyone else been taught to over-sharpen or is that just me?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
phoenix57311d ago
That line about "you're sharpening the burr right off" hits home. I did the same thing when I first started paring leather, sharpening every couple minutes because the cuts looked rough and I figured the blade had to be dull. Old timer at a saddle shop told me I was basically chasing my own tail and wearing the edge down to nothing. What worked for me was switching to a strop with green compound and only hitting the stone when the blade actually felt like it was sliding instead of biting. I also dropped my angle a hair so the edge had a little more meat behind it. Once I stopped over-sharpening my skips almost disappeared overnight. Feels wrong to sharpen less when the work looks bad but sometimes the edge just needs a few passes on leather to come back.
1