Oh man, that's painful to see. I ended up using a Dremel tool with a sanding drum to skive down those edges because it was such a bear to get through the lining material and the PVA underneath with a skiving knife. But good work my man, it looks great!

My first question would be, "Do you have this problem on all your projects, or just this one? If it's just this one, then an examination of what's different than your others would be in order. If it's all of your projects then it seems that you need to improve your consistency of every detail of the stitching process. I would also agree with Phil that being so close to the edge has created some issues for yourself. What I would suggest is to check out some videos of Phil on stitching or Nigel Armitage, Then try to develop a consistent process of every part of the stitching process, from marking, to punching, to threading the needle, to stitching rhythm and tension (to name a few). Then make yourself a couple of belts to start getting the hang of it. Like they say....practice, practice, practice!

I have tried multiple angles and still have the same problem. I have a couple of skiving knives that have small secondary bevels which don't give me any trouble because keeping it flat on a small secondary edge isn't too hard. It's with these wide single bevels that there is a problem. I bought this small jig which is great for straight blade skiving knives. I almost couldn't believe how sharp I could get the blade when it is perfectly flat against the sharpening surface.

Here's kinda the challenge with these angled knives....it's hard to get any kind of a jig underneath them on the sharpening surface. It like it needs to be next to the sharpening block.

I would just add here that you need to make sure that when you punch your holes (I'm assuming you've punched all the way through) that your pricking irons need to be dead vertical to your leather as you punch. Again, as Phil said, consistency is key in everything related to your stiching....holes punched straight and to the same depth, needle work the same on every hole, same tension pulled on every hole, same direction pulled on every hole etc, etc. You'll get it. It just take practice. One of the things I did was to make a few stitched belts. You can get a pretty good rythym doing that.

I have watched that video a few times, but holding the skewed blades is just not working for me. That's where I'm wondering if there's a jig fur these kinds of blades. Ive seen lots of stuff for straight blades (like chisels) but really nothing for extremely skewed blades like lap, skiving or pairing knives.

Thanks Stephen! Agreed about the eyelets. I was just trying to make a copy of the Montana which doesn't have eyelets. The leather I'm using is a hybrid-tanned water buffalo and it is definitely stretchier than the stuff Birkenstock uses. If I were to use it again, I thought that maybe I'd need to wet it and then stretch it out (which I don't know how I would do that exactly). But that would probably make the leather stiffer, which would have some pros and cons. This was a fun project. I'm really not much of a Cobbler. I traced the shape of the shoe of an existing pair of Montanas to get a pattern. I bought the footbeds and then added a couple details like the stitching and the copper rivets. I'll probably try making another pair. Maybe some kind of two toned color version

I have found that Fil au Chinois thread is less consistent along any length compared to many other common threads used today. Perhaps that it some of its charm. I share the counsel to make sure that you are doing the best you can to remove the twist in the thread. That's the biggest help to mitigate knotting. One other thing I like to do is to run the thread through some paraffin wax after the bees wax. I have found this to help a little to make the thread pass through the stitching holes a little easier...which can also help decrease knotting. I think that might be rather anecdotal, but give it a try and see if it helps you.

There's a small fortune of advice in your comments. Just the idea of polishing your blocks blew my mind.

I'd say within acceptable ranges. 👍

Depending on what tip you are using, you can sometimes come back after everthing is finished and give a little heat with an S tip, just to redefine a crease line. Just be careful that you don't veer off and mark a completed project!

When you say #9 pricking iron, are you referrring to a Blanchard #9? If so, I think that equates rougly to about a 3.0mm pricking iron. In my opinion, I think that would be a good place to start as far as spacing goes. Many people might recomment going with a 2.7mm pricking iron for a watch strap. Either way, I would recommend either the 632 or 832 Lin Cable. You might want to stitch a couple short lines of each to see which look you prefer. I would probably need to see your idea for the strap, but I was thinking that I would probably recommend a bit thinner Zermatt liner leather.

That looks great! On all those turned edges, are they all skived too? By hand? If so, WOW! That's a lot of work!

You might find a little more help in the "Help From The Community" section of the Forum as the Mastermind section is reserved for questions about projects in Phil's course videos.

I would agree with others here in that this is a fairly complicated question with no one-size-fits-all answer. The "size" of the project needs to be taken into consideration as well as the "look" that you're going after. The larger the project, the wider the spacing you can have. For the distance away from the edge, my "general" rule of thumb is that it is about the same as the thickness of the leather.

Thanks for your feedback Fadi. What would you think about using lambskin to make an interior zippered pocket with a gusset on one side?

Wow! The hand stitched quilting alone is incredible. Well done!

I made it sound very scientific.... No,I don't have any specifically. But I was thinking of things like cutting off a little swatch of leather and then rubbing it against a pair of older blue jeans. Or rubbing a very slightly damp cloth with a little dirt on it against the leather. Then leave it in the sun for a few days and see how it looks. Do the same thing to a piece that has been protected with acrylic resolene and compare the two. At the end of the day, I think one can confidently say that white leather, crome tanned or not, will not age particularly well. The question becomes then, what can one do to make it look its best for as long as possible.

I would try some artificial accelerated aging methods to see what it looks like.

Not that youtube is the true source of all information, but there are a lot of videos of Japanese and Korean leather workers using Japanese style knives. Interestingly, they cut with their right hand, what I would call a left handed knife, but never have I seen them skive with the beveled side down.