I thought, that this blog would be about clothing mostly, but it has turned out to be about leatherworking tools. Please bear with me.
If you work with leather you'll definitely have come across Tandy. Tandy is a major corporation, that sells leather, tools and whatever you may need, but almost never of a good quality. They have killed off the competition and basically they control the market. You can get every tool you need to get started, but at some point when you feel, that your skills are improving, you'll start getting a bit annoyed by the inferior tools. This is basically the point, where I am now. I feel the need to exchange some of my older, starter tools with some new better tools.
There are very few good makers of leatherworking tools left - especially in Europe. Vergez Blanchard of France is one, Joseph Dixon of England is another.
I decided to go for Dixon, when I needed new edge bevellers, and I haven't been disappointed so far. An edge beveller or edge shaver is a tool, that you use to chamfer the edge of a piece a leather before you start treating the edges further.
Dixon tools are still made in England and the company has been around since 1843. The recipe seems to be the same; Good materials, steel, brass and wood. Simple.
Dixon makes two different kinds of edge shavers and they come in sizes from 1-8. I went for 2 and 3 of both kinds because they're often the ones, that you'll be reaching for the most. I wouldn't mind getting the rest of the bunch though.
This is a flat edge shaver, which is the type you see the most nowadays and it's great for smaller accessories.
This is the rounded edge shave is very similar to the flat edge shave, but as you can see, it's concave and will cut of slightly more leather and round the leather a bit more. This is used for belts mostly.
