Leather Splitter

[darkmatter35]

I'm looking for a splitter for inlays and such. The Tandy deluxe splitter 3795-00 is on sale for $200.00, will this one work for me or should I look elsewhere ?
Thanks, John S.

 

[leatherman]

I have, and I think so does Horsewright, that little "high tech" splitter.

I have been eyeballing that deluxe splitter as well, but its hard to justify it when that little bugger is working well.

 

[sheathmaker]

Pull through splitters can be very tricky and frustrating. I have never had much, if any luck with them. It is very difficult for me to get an even split with the pull through and the larger, (and longer) the piece, the harder to get a good even split.

If you are also considering splitting the exotics, then the tensile strength of the particular exotic comes into play. Many or even most of the exotics are simply not strong enough for the pull through action.

My best experience comes from the crank or motorized splitters, both of which are very significantly higher priced than the pull through models.

This based on my personal experience (or lack thereof) with the pull through models. I have never had much, if any success with them.

Paul

 

[Horsewright]

I use to really love the one we have, the one Dwayne mentioned. We'd originally bought it for splitting long strips for headstalls. We use horsehide for that product and there is lots of variance in thickness in that leather in a strip. So this litle splitter worked well for that. Problem is we liked it so well we started pushing it past its design parameters. One of which was splitting leather for linings of various projects (belts and spurstraps mostly). Now don't like the little guy so much and we want to replace it with the Cobra motorized one. Found its drawbacks to be: the blade needed to be sharpened often, limited size (4" blade but really you get any wider than 2" and it is REAL WORK), takes considerable strength (I'd have to do it for Nichole she wasn't strong enough), doing a long strap like a belt is really a two man operation, one to do the pulling and one to keep it feeding straight. Having lived with it for some time now I'm hesitant to recommend it for anything but strap work and belts. I went back to buying a side of lining leather.

 

[darkmatter35]

Thanks gentlemen good advice. Most of my purchases there, have been replaced. I recently bought some stainless steel snaps from a marine company and I am real happy with the quality.
John S.