Best knife for cutting out holsters

[Pappy Hayes]

Hey pards what have you found to be the best knife to use to cut out holsters? I have been using a box knife but find it difficult sometimes. Hard to cut small curves. Have to usually go over the cut several times leaves more chances of missing up.

[Marshal Will Wingam]

Everyone has their favorites. A lot of pards like the round knives. I have one but prefer the ones in the top picture.

Top photo: The top knife is one I made from a saw blade. It's the one I use for most things. It's a copy of the one that the old saddle maker I worked for had. The middle one is also from a saw blade and is good for cutting tighter curves. The bottom one is available at Tandy and other places and is great for very tight work.

Middle photo: My round knife. I also made that from a saw blade. A good round knife is fairly costly so I made mine to see if I wanted one. I use it mostly for skiving and for that it's awsome. A round knife takes a little practice. You may wind up with a cut now and then until you get used to it.

If you want to make knives, the steel in saw blades is hard to beat. Just don't get it hot enough to turn blue when grinding on it.

Bottom photo: For very tight curves like for a trigger or such, I use a round punch in the curve then cut to that for a nice even cut.

[Slowhand Bob]

Actually I like the bent head box knife and carpet knife for 70% of my cutting and the curved blade knife Marshall shows in the top center.   A good set of the larger hole punches and even the large half round strap end punches also shown by the Marshall, will do some of the tight spots that the knife will not.   Because the punches will seldom give a straight verticle cut I dress those small arcs with a Dremel drum sander.

[mrappe]

I use a head knife for all of the parts except for the very tight part of the recurve where the trigger goes and there I use a big hole punch that has the correct diameter. If you tilt the head knife back you can make some fairly tight curves with it. When I used to use a straight edged knife I would have trouble cutting curves.

[Freedom]

The head/round knife is the top of the list...but it can be difficult to get sharp enough. When it is sharp it will slice through saddle leather like air, with almost no friction or binding...just can't be beat. ...but if it is just a little dull the force required to get it to move can cause major disasters and injuries.

The Tandy one is a fine blade and cuts well, but it will break easy if you skive hard with it. The weaver is as good as it gets for an in-expensive knife. The heavy one I made from a saw is awsome of heavy skiveing...but it's heavy/thick blade causes too much friction to cut well with.

It does take some learning...and you can never lead with your off hand and NEVER cut toward anthing you want to keep!!  There really is no learning curve with safety and I think of the head knife exactly like a Gun...When you pull the trigger, what ever it is pointed towards is history!!:o

For real tight corners the 3/4" +/- hole punches are hard to beat... the punch does cut an tapered hole so you just need to finish your edges after sewing with a drum sander or a file/rasp. I also have a saw blade knife a lot like the middle one pictured of Marshal Will's and it gets used a lot for tight curves and clean-up carving.

[GunClick Rick]

I could tell ya but KT would have to shoot ya.. He told me what he uses

[GunClick Rick]

That's a nice Bandaidalero there Marshall it will look awsome with the loops

[Springfield Slim]

I used to use a razor/carpet knife but now I use a small round knife, much smaller than the ones Tandy sells(3" across ). It is an old Osborne I bought off the internet. It is double headed so I ground one of the ends thinner for tight work. You do have to keep it very sharp.

[TwoWalks Baldridge]

I use a flexcut wood carvers knife and have had great luck with it.



Mainly because I had rotten results with a box cutter knife and I already had the flexcut knife.

[Red Cent]

The wife's hobby is sewing. Have any of you used a roller cutter?

[Springfield Slim]

Roller cutters work OK for thinner leather, but not thicker, especially around tight corners.

[Freedom]

I use a rotary cutter for 98% of my straight cutting. The 60mm Olfa will cut through the thickest saddle skirting with no effort. It just will not cut turns (not even a little bit). And yep, I bought it from a quilt shop. I got a supply of blades from Ebay, and they last forever if you use the self healing Olfa mat... I bet that I have a year on this blade. I sometimes strop it, but nothing else...my mat has held up (kind'a) to going on 4 years of everyday use with the Olfa and my head knife.

[Red Cent]

I use her roller cutter and it seems to go through thick leather very well. Seems that it would be great in cutting for belts.

[Chuck 100 yd]

I cut out all my projects on a Delta 14" bandsaw using a 1/8" scroll saw blade.
I lay my leather on a 1/8" thick piece of MDF Fiberboard (available at Home Depot for $3.75 for a 2'X4' sheet)
The "Medium Density Fiberboard" prevents tear out from the blade on the back side of the leather. Some very accurate cutting
is very easily done this way.
Not Old Fangled but a great way to get-er-done without the frustration I used to put up with. 

[will ghormley]

Round Knife, Head Knife, and one of them curved pointy knives for the sharp corners.  Like the Marshal said, a hole punch works great on tight corners.  I don't punch all the way through any more, because I had a tendency to get a little bump where I went from the hole to the straight.  Now, I punch about half-way through, then start my cuts out of it with a Round Knife, and finish up the hole I started with one of them curved pointy leather knives.

Most folks who don't like the Round Knives have never used one that has been properly sharpened.  I haven't ever bought a new one that didn't need a lot of work to be usable.  If you can find an antique one somewhere, you've got a prize.

If anyone ever broke into my home, I'd grab for that Round Knife before anything else.  It is so sharp I'd have the feller laid out to his backbone before he even knew he was nicked. 

Will