More about Carving Leather

The last photo in the previous post demonstrated how to hold a swivel knife and carve the leather. (Included below.) It really can be that simple to get started carving your pattern. Do not hold the knife at too sharp of an angle up and down or too much to the left or right when carving sharp curves. Leaning the swivel knife back too much will reduce the control that you have over the direction the blade will cut. If the swivel knife is held at too much of angle is almost like trying to push something that you should be pulling instead. This will be more easily understood when you get more practice. Also, you will find that it is difficult to make the swivel knife behave exactly as you would like it to sometimes. I still have that issue at times, especially when a leaf or a flower petal has many sharp curves.

Another look at carving leather.

The main thing that you will need to do is to decide which part of the pattern to carve first. I like to carve the flowers before I carve any leaves or stems. That way I will have a good starting point and a good point from which to start carving the rest of the pattern. I like to carve the lines connecting with the flowers away from the flower because invariably, I will knick the flower with my swivel knife blade if I carve toward the flower. I also like to carve the lines of the stems and other items that I would like to look as if they should be above the other portions of the pattern. It is a good habit to select the lines that are complete from beginning to end and carve those before any adjoining lines.

The drawing below is of an acanthus leaf tracing/carving pattern. I placed red arrows next a few lines to indicate which lines I might carve first. Notice that these are complete lines and do not butt up against any others. The blue arrows show the lines that I would carve next and the points at which I would place my swivel knife blade to begin carving each of these lines. There are no hard-fast rules about how you need to carve your leather. The techniques that I am trying to teach you are what I have learned as my “best practices” for doing the best work I can.

Tracing pattern with arrows showing starting points.

If is always a good idea to practice using a swivel knife before you begin carving your actual project. You might have to purchase scrap leather from the same dealer where you purchased your stamps. Otherwise, if you have a saddle shop close you may be able to find some small scraps there to with which to practice. That being said, one of the most difficult parts of carving leather is to make sure that you practice rotating the barrel of your swivel knife to follow the lines properly as you proceed. The old saying, “Practice makes perfect,” should, at this point of the game actually be, “Practice makes better!”

When practicing, make sure that you are carving deep enough to cut through the grain of the leather as well. The depth at which you carve a pattern will be determined by the thickness of the leather and the thickness of the grain. The grain is not always the same thickness on every piece of leather that you might use. Always make sure that when carving thinner leather that you do not carve too deep and cut all the way through. This may sound a little tedious, but with practice, it will all come much easier.

One last thing about carving leather. Carving leather is much easier if the blade is reasonably sharp and smooth. The swivel knife blade can be removed by loosening the setscrew on the barrel and pulling it out. Although the swivel knife blade is not on the quality with a precision surgical blade, extreme care should be taken to make sure that the sides are honed equally. When you look at the swivel knife blade, you will see that it is “V” shaped. Keep the sides of the “V” as close to the same as possible. A tool is available that will hold your blade in place at the proper angle while you pull it across your honing stone. This tool can be found at or ordered by your local leather craft dealer. Do not use a file or a coarse stone to sharpen your blade. The only time that you would want to use a coarse stone is to remove any grinding marks that were left over from the manufacturing process.

For many years, I used a double-sided super fine grit hone that I purchased early on in my career. I still have that Tonsorial Gem stone but I do not use it because I learned other techniques that I like better. I got a tired of having to drag out the honing oil and coating the first side of the stone for sharpening, wiping it off, flipping the stone over, and doing the same thing over again. It was a great method for making sure that my blade was in decent shape for carving leather.

The method that I now use for sharpening my swivel knife is somewhat different from the tonsorial gem. I learned a something from the saddle makers that I worked with concerning sharpening swivel knife blades, heck, a man who makes custom leather stamps and swivel knives told me he does pretty much the same thing. A swivel knife blade does not need to be sharpened very often. Sound intriguing? The blade can be polished by dragging it, while still in the swivel knife, across the flesh side of a piece of leather that has white jewelers rouge rubbed on it. The piece of leather should be one of consistent thickness and about 1 ½ inches wide and about a foot long. White jewelers rouge comes in a small block and can be rubbed onto the rough side of the leather easily. A block of jewelers rouge will last a long time and should need to be purchased once in your lifetime. The leather should last that long or longer!

Let me know if you have any questions.

Have fun!