For cutting by hand chuck the stanley and use surgical scaples, they stay sharper slightly longer and are easier to guide by eye. You will need to replace the blade as soon as it starts to catch to maintain good clean edge. For hand cutting I don't think your ever going to beat a good hand held blade.... any power tool would undoubtedly also blunt frequently and probably make detailed cutting really difficult

And I seem to recall a leather-knife that looks a bit like an axeblade/~beard. The curved edge is rolled over/pushed through the leather, iso making sawcuts. I might actually be faster, and certainly easier to sharpen. You`d still need a scalpel for small details, if you`re into doing those.

edit:

I did a swift google on leather tools. They`re called strap cutters and round knives, respectively, like these:

http://www.bowstock.co.uk/acatalog/Knives.html

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IRL: Edwin Hofstra

- mostly crewing at the moment

If it helps...

I used to run the mangled Hobbit Stall with my mates.

You don't make mistakes. What you have done is create a 'design feature' The fixing of this feature adds to the individual handcrafted nature of the product.

(Though to be fair we did have a strict rule of no more than three design features per product.)

they rock - and are great for a multitude of things from cutting lead (!), to leather, to cutting your mates out of duct tape dummies whilst they're suffocating (and you're smoking their fags)

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