Ok...so - if you've ever tried to make your own hard cover leather journal, and you're like me in that you're self taught and you're using whatever leather you can find to cover your journal - you will understand this problem:
If you're using even remotely thick leather, when the time comes to fold over the leather for your corners, the corner starts to look really ugly since you're folding one thick layer of leather on top of another. This looks ugly, and would also make writing in the journal quite difficult.
Unwieldy corner since the leather is so thick
How do you fix this? Turns out, the solution to this is something called "leather paring". Leather paring involves using a knife to slice out layers of leather to reduce its thickness. This is what professional bookbinders do, to reduce the thickness of their leather at the corners, so that the corners remain smooth and clean. I saw some videos on leather paring like this one, and figured - ok, all I had to do was find a leather paring knife and learn how to pare leather. And thus my hunt for a leather paring knife began.
A search on Amazon (because, where else do you go to find stuff?), surfaced a bunch of disappointing results. As you can see from the search results, there are all kinds of shapes available - completely round paring knife, rectangular paring knife, there are some that seem to be all metal without any soft of rubber/wood handle.
My preference was for a rectangular shape as from the videos I'd seen, that shape seemed to be better suited for the task at hand. I eventually ordered this one because - 1. It had the right shape 2. I was getting more stuff than just the knife! 3. It's cheap. Yep, I was being stingy. And 4.4 stars across 398 reviews should be fine? No. Absolutely not. I could not cut anything with this knife. When you attempt leather paring, you realize how your knife needs to be REALLY sharp, if it has to have any hope of slicing through leather. So no, this did not work, not for me atleast.
My first attempt - the left most knife is the leather paring knife
Next I tried this one. I suppose I should have learnt my lesson but this was only marginally more expensive but still very cheap. I think the characters on the blade are supposed to make you think that it's made in Japan? Not sure. In any case, this also did not work me.
Second attempt at a leather paring knife
Somewhere I heard about Jeff Peachy's leather paring knife. I'm not sure where, maybe I read about it on some forum. The knife looked great quality (and having taken some bookbinding courses since, I now know that Jeff Peachy is sort of an authority in bookbinding circles, so I'm assuming that it is indeed a great quality knife) - but it costs a whopping $155. For a hobbyist bookbinder like myself, that seemed like a steep investment, one that I wasn't sure that I was ready to make.
Jeff Peachy leather paring knife
So at this point, I gave up. I was like, "I don't know but good and affordable leather paring knives do not exist.". When I went to Florence last year, a bookbinding hub as one might think, I even asked a bookbinder I met there if they could tell me what knife they used for paring leather. Perhaps there was a language barrier, but for some time, she did not even understand why someone might need a leather paring knife, because she bought all her leather pre-pared by the seller (I suppose you can do that if you're buying large quantities?) Eventually she suggested Jeff Peachy for buying bookbinding tools. I already know Jeff Peachy's knife and no that's not an option.
A year went by, when very recently, I decided to check out the website of San Francisco Center of Book Arts. And oh my god, they had a workshop on leather paring, and at the end of the class, you got to keep your leather paring knife!!! WHATTT. I signed up immediately.
Attending this hands on workshop helped me realize why a good leather paring knife is so expensive. The first 4 hours of the 8 hour workshop were spent just sharpening our knives. And it was hard work! My arms were paining when I returned home that day.
But I finally got my own leather paring knife! 🙂 And I even got the chance to use it, pare leather with it, and learn the basics of what it takes to keep your knife sharp. Rest assured - leather paring is hard work, requires patience, and it'll take tons of practice to actually become good at it.
My leather paring knife
So if you're looking for a good leather paring knife, what should you do?
I think if you're looking for something that actually works and will last you long time, getting a Jeff Peachy knife may not be a bad idea (although I haven't used it, I'm going based on what seems to be popular among professional bookbinders). It's expensive yes, but my guess is that it's worth it and the cheap ones don't actually work.
This one seems to have been added on Amazon recently, and seems worth a try but I haven't used it personally so cannot say. But it seems promising and priced much more affordably. It's a gamble? Maybe you could also try these ones from Talas, but they need to be DIY sharpened which is no mean feat 🙂
Happy paring!
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