t's been some time since I had the chance to post and it looked liked I missed a lot.
On sharpening the knife: my grandfather used to say you can tell the shoemaker by his (or her) knifes. It's arguably the most diverse and important tool to our disposal. The sharper the knife the safer it is to work with and the better the product so knife sharpening is not just a side discussion. I'm glad it so many contributed with their ways and techniques.
As to the way I do tings, lets take a look a the different knifes.
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I couldn't find my pattern cutters knife for the picture but I only use that to cut paper patterns. The unique quality that knife has is that it's handle has a sharp metal point on the opposite end form the knife to make markings in pattern paper.
#1 is the Murphy Square point shoe knife. I recently bought a couple but don't work with them much, I use them mostly to cut the soles of shoes that need to be modified.
#2 not sure where this welt knife came from, I would have sworn I got a new one when I started school and I know I did not use it that much to look like this.
#3 my TINA upper cutting knife, thiner than my regular tina so it's easier to take tight turns. It's sharpened without any direction, not left or right handed, both sides are tapered equally.
#4 my all round tina knife, it's sharpened for a right hand user like myself and I use it for everything from cutting sheet material to trimming and skiving. The one next to it, #5 is newer and I'm still working on the blade angle, I like to have a long cutting edge, for heavy duty materials I cut lower on where the steel is thicker, for delicate work I use the tip. It takes quite some time for a knife to be sharpened just perfect for me. Once it's there sharpening is just a maintenance issue. Since it is so hard to get a knife just perfect you risk you life taking a shoemakers knife for any other reason than to safe his life.

Just like a good chef, you have your own set of knifes and take them with you wherever you go. Tools are personal items and that's not to be taken lightly.
#6 is an older knife, it's been used every day for at least 5 years so that would account for about a quarter inch of wear per year.
#7 is a skiving knife but not something I like to use as you can see by it's nearly new condition. It's rounded to the front, that makes it very hard to sharpen well.
#8 is my hook blade I use it for cutting fiberglass casts. Not much used in the shop but it never hurts to have a utility knife handy.
To the left on top is my diamond wet stone, the way I use it is straight passes perpendicular to the cutting edge. Next I use my oil stone, not with oil, that's the one on the lower left. The picture does not show it but it has 2 type of stone fused together, one fine and one finer. I use a circular motion on this stone with my knife. On my Right hand oriented knife I only sharpen one side on the diamond wet stone but do both sides on the oil stones. The curved side, where I take away steel to sharpen more than the other side cause I want to take out any damage that may have scored the steel during it's use.
After all that to the strop first on the wood side, than the leather side with the polishing compound. The leather is just nailed on on both ends, no glue in there.
I have used mechanical sharpening in the past but really prefer to do it by hand, it's so easy to burn a knife on a mechanical stone, to take that weak spot out of the knife takes forever and there is no way to have a burned knife keep it sharpness unless you grind it down beyond the point where it was burned.
Skiving:
I pull skive and prefer to do it standing up on a high table, usually the cutting table. I use my regular all around Tina knife after I sharpened it nicely and have my strop nearby to frequently use. I use a piece of tapered glass. I'm embarrassed to show it here, it's a double layered piece and one side is broken and taped up. I used to have a car window that worked very well. Should take a roadtrip to the junkyard sometime soon.
I basically skive left to right, my thumb is near the cutting edge, gives me great control, the angle of the blade is not perpendicular to the leather as you can see.
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I sometimes skive in my lap as Chris does but just in a pinch. I feel that I do not have the control with the glass plate in my lap. I have my apron on and under it my pants so there are layer that can shift and make me loose control.
The other advantage of skiving right at the cutting table is as soon as you cut a couple of pieces you know what needs to be skived and how much you want to skive. Some people cut out the pattern, put it away and not till later will they skive. If you have a lot of pieces it takes a long time to figure out what goes where and what to skive.
Lasting Pincers:
I was not aware that there are 3 sizes of lasting pincers, I have a wide and narrow one.
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The nickel plated ones are from Schein,
http://www.schein.de/english/index.html I don't know who carries them domesticly. The ones with the red handles are a little heavier. For men's shoes I use those, for women's shoes mostly the Schein pincers.
Tool junky:
The one who dies with the most tools wins, right. Well I'm not planning on dieing any time soon. I have collected a good number of tools and related times like a couple of sewing machines that need to be fixed up. Some of it I have for parts more than anything, some I may be able to trade. If you can find it and inspect it in person you better buy it or you won't be able to find it later.
The most used tools are fairly basic, knife, lasting pliers, hammer, sewing machine. The rest it not necessary, it just makes things easier. I once took a class on traditional handcrafting shoes. Other than a sewing machine only hand tools were used. Not the easiest of things but very doable.
I think I'm mostly caught up for now. Talk to you later
Rob
(Message edited by relferink on April 22, 2006)