Shoemakers Knives

[Emdiesse]

Hi,

I bought a lot of cobblers tools because I was after the seamroller, cobblers hammer, rasp and anvil and in amongst the lot were three knives.

I'm aware they are most likely for shoemaking.... but I just want to find out more about their specific uses



Cheers,
Matt

 

[grey-array]

Well dont pin me down on this but I think I can help you out on the two curved ones.
The less curved one is for trimming off bits of leather in the production of mainly the soles of leather shoes or boots, trimming off the excess,
The other one is for trimming away leather the over shoots the bottom of the last, Least, laest? not sure XD on which the shoe or boot is made,
but the most curved blade final cause is to trim down the connection of leather just above the sole, the last bit of shoe that has stitching if you will all around the shoes sole, and it is use to trim and bevel it for a neat finish.

The final one, I have no clue about if it was used for anything special, but maybe a traditional cobbler will know ^^
Hope that helped.

Yours sincerely Ruud

 

[Emdiesse]

Well dont pin me down on this but I think I can help you out on the two curved ones.
The less curved one is for trimming off bits of leather in the production of mainly the soles of leather shoes or boots, trimming off the excess,
The other one is for trimming away leather the over shoots the bottom of the last, Least, laest? not sure XD on which the shoe or boot is made,
but the most curved blade final cause is to trim down the connection of leather just above the sole, the last bit of shoe that has stitching if you will all around the shoes sole, and it is use to trim and bevel it for a neat finish.

The final one, I have no clue about if it was used for anything special, but maybe a traditional cobbler will know ^^
Hope that helped.

Yours sincerely Ruud

Cheers Ruud, that makes sense.

I had bought the lot because partly I wanted to start soling my own shoes and funnily enough I used a stanley knife with a curved blade to trim the sole - little did I know I already had a knife for it (needs a 'little' sharpening mind you!)

I had found sources online describing the straight one as a 'lasting knife' but nothing about how it is supposed to be used (until now!)

I believe that connection of leather just above the sole is called a welt, although I'm not sure if that's specifically when a seperate piece of material is used to join the upper to the sole.

Eventually I'd be keen on giving shoemaking a go, alas, I have so many other projects!

In the meantime, I don't know if this tutorial is of any interest to people - it's very long, but very informative!

[video=youtube;iC0RoNws64Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC0RoNws64Q[/video]

That's just part 1 of.... many!

 

[Macaroon]

The straight knife on the right of the picture was always known simply as a shoe knife to us, and I've always had one on the bench as one of my go-to tools; one of the handiest of my general purpose knives. They are still freely available and are made still, I think, by the firm Faithful.

Curved knives of various descriptions are used for cutting thick leather and are very good on curved cuts, much less prone to "jumping out" of such cuts.