Simple Knife For Shoemaking Craft
In the shoemaking craft, there are many different types of knives that you can work with. But you don’t need to have all of them, especially when you just start learning shoemaking craft, you need to use only few of them.
In this post, I am gonna talk with you about one of the most simple but very useful knives that will help you a lot in your shoemaking craft.
Basic Solutions in Shoemaking Craft
One of the advantages of this knife is that it is very easy to source, you can find it, for sure, in your local stationary store because it is a utility knife.
It is not the “conventional’’ shoemaking knife but this knife will be your best friend in shoemaking craft.
What is really important here is that you should have sharp blades to work easy and get good results.
The only disadvantage that this knife has is, that the blades become blunt very often and to keep up with the good work you should have a big amount of the changeable/new blades.
So to not invest too much money in blades and to have always sharp knife I want to share with you super useful shoemaking craft idea on how to sharpen the blades for your utility knife.
Learn in this video what blades I recommend to use with your utility knife and how to sharpen them!
Where you can use this knife in your shoemaking craft?
- 1To cut cardboards in pattern making
- 2
To cut taxon boards and shank boards to make cardboard insoles
- 3
To cut leather for upper and lining
- 4
To cut sole bends, if you don’t have good shoemaking knife
- 5
To skive, if you don’t have good shoemaking knife
In all these steps of shoemaking craft, it is super important to have sharp knife, especially in cutting leather and in the skiving as well. Now, if you want to learn more about other shoemaking tools that I recommend towork with in shoemaking, especcially if you are a beginner in shoemaking, read this post: "Beginners in Shoemaking Tools and Materials Definitive Guide 2023".
Now, please comment below and let me know what knife do you use and if you use utility knife blades, then which ones?
Step by step transcript of what I am doing in this video tutorial:
00:00 In shoemaking craft, there are so many different knives that you can use to make your shoes, but in this shoemaking making me video I want to show you one simple knife that you can buy in your local store that will help you in your craft. I want to show you how to sharpen this knife because it's super important to have sharp knives. Don't forget to subscribe and click the bell to be notified when my new video will come out, so let's see how to do it.
00:47 In your shoemaking craft you need to cut different materials: cardboards, leather. So to cut all these different materials you can have a special knife, but you actually can work only with one knife, the utility knife that you can buy in your local store to cut all these materials. I work with this knife, the utility knife. What is important here is to have good blade. The blade that I use in my work is BD 100. This Japanese blade it's an excellent blade with very sharp edge, but what happens is that the edge of his blade gets blunt very frequently. So I need to change this blade very often and to use it in your craft, you should have a big amount of the blades. So now I want to show you this, the craft idea that will help you in your craft, so you will not need to change your blade very often. Now I want to show you how to sharpen the edge of your blade that you will use in utility, what you place in utility knife. To sharpen the blade you should have sandpaper with grid number 180. Cut small piece of this sandpaper and attach it to some piece of wood like this one and attach with nails to change it. Place it almost flat to the surface of sandpaper and lift it a little bit to create an angle of 30 degrees
02:40 and than sharpen it like this. Once
02:47 You will sharpen this side of the blade, then turn over and place it in the same angle, and sharpen
02:58 the other surface
03:00 of your blade. It's enough to make few strokes, to have very sharp edge of your blade. After you sharpen the edge of your blade, you will be able to work with this blade. It is very sharp when you can card boards or leather, and if you will break the edge of the blade. Don't change it. You still can sharpen it. So sharpen it until you will have enough space on the edge to cut it to use it. Okay, and then just break it here to change the blade and you will have sharp edge again. And after it will become blunt, sharpen it and work with this blade in your craft. If you don't have this blade and you have ordinary blade like this one, you also can sharpen it working with sandpaper in the same way. Place it almost flat, make few strokes on the sandpaper attached to the piece of wood, and than cut card boards very easy or leather. That's it. I post new shoemaking tutorial every week. Make sure to subscribe to my channel and Click the bell to get notified when my new video comes out. Thank you. See you in the next video. Bye.
Hello!
I would like to learn to make shoe.
Could you please let me know how to register?
Thanks and Best Regards,
Thai Chau
Just visit my courses page and get the available courses.
Hi Sveta,
My blade is an XB141 Japanese Blade. It is very sharp except there is a draw back. The holder itself has a clip like that of a pen, that allows the user to attach the knife to a pocket. That clip seems to create a bit of discomfort by just barely resting against my hand when I use the knife. I hold my knife at a 45 degree angle sometimes 90 degrees when I cut.
I will however practice your sharpening technique with the other knifes I have.
Thank you for the tip.
Ja-C