The other day, Munekawa had the "leather skiving machine" that we use in our production serviced.

The leather skiving machine is an essential part of Munekawa production.
In today's blog, we will give you a little glimpse into the maintenance process.

What is a leather skiving machine?

A leather skiving machine (also called a band knife machine) is a machine used to adjust the thickness of leather parts.
The leather parts are passed through rollers and the internal blades thin the thickness of the leather.

Even if you regularly use leather accessories, if you are not familiar with leather craft, you may not be very conscious of the thickness of the leather .
However, even a slight difference in the thickness of the leather can make a big difference in the impression you get when holding the product in your hand and in its strength.

2.3mm thick raw hide and leather thinned to 0.7mm using a leather skiving machine

For a watch like Munekawa, which has few leather parts and a simple structure, the thickness of the leather is especially important.
Depending on the product, we often have to scrutinize differences in thickness of just 0.1 mm.

In the production of Munekawa, the leather skiving machine, which can adjust the thickness of the entire leather part evenly , is a very important production device.
The even thickness of the leather allows us to create more precise, sturdy, and high-quality products.

A leather skiving machine that quickly and uniformly adjusts the thickness.
They support Munekawa's manufacturing, which is carried out by a small team of people.

Maintenance of a leather skiving machine

This time, we asked a contractor we always use to carry out the maintenance.
The leather skiving machine used by Munekawa is a German-made one manufactured several decades ago.
With regular adjustments like this, it is still in good working order today.

The blades of a leather skiving machine are special and seamlessly circular .
The unused blade is 50mm wide.
The blades of Munekawa's leather skiving machine had worn down to about 20 mm.

If the blade width were to be smaller than 20mm, it would affect the precision of the skiving, and problems such as the blade cracking when skiving dense or thick leather would be more likely to occur.
Seems like it would be a good time to replace the blade.

Maintenance of tools is very important for producing high quality products.
To get the most out of your tools, you need to keep them in top condition .

I would like to express my gratitude to those who support Munekawa's production through the maintenance of our tools, and I would like to continue making products while taking good care of them and making regular adjustments.

We would like to continue making leather products that our customers will want to take good care of and maintain for a long time.