Cutting Surfaces For Knives And Blades

Blog-cutting surfaces.

Cutting Surfaces for Knives and Blades

     In this post I am going to share my personal favorite surfaces for cutting.  Some of these recommendations will depend on the available bench and table space in your work area.
     For cutting with round knives and fixed blade knives I want a durable and smooth surface that will not allow a blade to penetrate deeply. I want the blade edges to glide over the surface, not dig in. Part of this depends on the user and you will find with experience that downward pressure is not necessary for clean cuts with most leather and a sharp blade. Think “forward not down”. My favorite surfaces for cutting are plastics – either high density polyethylene(HDPE) or ultra high molecular weight polyethylenbe (UHMWPE). Some prefer acetal/Delrin but that material is generally more expensive with little difference. These plastics are hard enough that they don’t allow a blade to penetrate deeply yet forgiving enough to not damage an edge. They can be occasionally renewed by sanding if they get deeper grooves. I prefer the largest piece I can to cover a dedicated cutting bench. I don’t want to use a smaller piece under a side of leather and accidentally run off the cutting board underneath. You may not have that luxury in your workspace but consider the biggest piece you can work with. These cutting boards can be found at many plastics supply shops, commercial kitchen and food handling suppliers, and some home improvement supply stores. This material is brittle and not what I recommend for punching however.  I will cover punching surface preferences in another post.
       Another surface material that seems to attract a lot of mention are the self-healing cutting mats. I do not like them for most knife cutting at all. The blades easily penetrate the surface and then drag, drag, drag. I find they dull fixed blade tips quickly as well. I was never without one in my shop though. I think they are excellent for the rotary blade/roller blade knives. They allow clean cuts and the rolling action of the blade tends to neutralize the drag. For best results think roll forward, not push down.
      The final surface for me is a piece of tempered glass and again - a nice size piece. I was taught to edge skive on glass. The glass allows the tip of the blade to glide over that smooth surface without digging in and dragging like you get with a cutting board. Some people skive on marble or granite stamping surfaces but that can be wearing on the blade. A good sharp knife and you can push away on most leathers and get an even skive in one pass with glass. Using the Skife razor blade skivers also will let the blade glide if you are cutting further up the curve.  I have an old flat side window from a car. I have seen some people use a curved glass surface also. This lets the leather lay around the curve and the blade angle can be lower with less interference with the leather holding hand. I have seen people use gallon glass jars or turned over bowls for this and do some paper-thin edges for inlays.