Ep20. How To 'Skive' Stingray, Reverse Pricking Irons & Leather Burnishing

Note: The demonstration at end of this podcast can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/v6lNt2Ltyh8?t=1397 1:36 Can you skive stingray skin? 4:41 How to sell leatherwork to customers without being too technical? 10:51 What are reverse pricking irons? DO I need them? 15:55 Tips on how to use a leather awl. What mistakes should I avoid? 22:41 How to cut a belt end without a punch (English point). 28:30 How to burnish leather with your BARE HANDS! How to make a 'pinkie loop' for an awl: https://youtu.be/-OO-M_M6FLs ☝️Are you new to the Leathercraft Masterclass? 👇To get started, visit https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/fineleathercraftcourses and claim your FREE leather & tool buying guides! (instant access) 🤔What's in the free guides?🎁A FREE full length course teaching you how to select the finest leathers and skins, so you can stop wasting time and money, which means you can confidently buy the best leather for your project. BONUS🎁: A completely FREE 20 page article sharing information about what TOOLS YOU NEED to get started, as well as which tools you should invest in later on. Go now and sign up! The FREE leather guide AND tool guide could be in your inbox in UNDER 60 seconds from now! ⏰📥🎁 I'll see you there, Philip Discover how the online courses can help you and your leathercraft: https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/ Other useful resources: Follow on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/leathercraftmasterclass Read the Blog! https://www.leathercraftmasterclass.com/blog-1 Follow on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/leathercraftmasterclass hello and welcome to this month's q a session with me phil and in this month like always i'm going to be taking questions from instagram live and i've also been sent through a series of questions which i'll name off in just a second but before i do that don't forget to follow me at leathercraftmasterclass on instagram where there's tons more content that you're missing out on here so don't forget to go over there and give me a follow on there too so what questions do i have in store for you guys today well number one we have a question on stingray skin we also have a question on presenting products to customers in way they understand reverse pricking irons tips for beginners on all use and also how to cut an english point on the end of your belt or strap without using an english point cutter okay like one of these punches here so i'm going to be giving a demonstration on how you can do that in your workshop without having that particular tool where you can get just as good results but also you can change the angles and play around with the shapes so i'm going to give you a demonstration on how to do that but i'm also going to have a little bit of fun and show you how to burnish with nothing more than your hand so without further ado we're gonna go live on instagram take some live questions as well and then we'll be going through these main ones don't forget if you want to get your questions in you guys on youtube on instagram every month i take questions in the stories so you can dm them to me or you can send them through when the story sticker okay so let's go live and take it from there all right so without further ado let's get started on april's q a so question number one is is it possible to skive stingray okay is it possible to skive stingray skin so what is stingray skin it could be of a series of fish even shark could be called stingray at times or shower green but they all possess similar qualities which you have these small circular beads uh almost like bone across the surface it's very distinctive there's nothing else quite like it in the the world of skin and leather and underneath you have a fibrous layer so there's the two main layers is your firm hard layer on the top and a fibrous layer and the top layer is made from enamel and dentine okay very similar to teeth in that sense and you can buy unsanded which is more spherical on the surface very interesting texture and you can buy it sanded which opens up a very different unique look to it and flattens out the surface as well so the person here is asking is it possible to skive stingray now normally skiving you're using something like this skiving skins and leather using a skiving knife now if you've tried to do that with uh stingray skin you would instantly blunt your knife doesn't matter what kind of super steel powdered steel that you're working with it's going to be the edge that you had okay because it's so hard and so tough it just strips the edge of almost anything so it's not possible to really skive stingray you could for example skive the underneath the fibrous layer but that's the foundation for the pearls that sit on top so if you skive that away they're just going to start falling apart and you'll have no strength and that's not what you want now what you can do is use a drum sander now you can use a regular drum sander or if you want a bit more detail you ...