Antonini 5116/L I paid ~$15 for a few years ago. No experience with other brands or other steel formulations. It’s sharp, holds an edge well, does what I ask of it very well.
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not if you use few light stokes just to tweak the edge. try it. its amazing how well it works even on a very dull knife.
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i paid like $7 each with tax 3 years ago at lowes. i even used it to touch up my ice auger blades.
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I have 5 knives I use. The knife I use the most is my Opinel #8, it’s my general use knife that I carry in the summer, but it’s a bit too long for grafting. I have it in a leather sheath that makes it comfortable in my pocket. I love this knife.
Next is my Amazon Special. It’s a single bevel, but as an inexperienced grafter it took me a couple years to realize the bevel was backwards. However, I have grown to like this feature as I use this knife when I want to cut away from my body (I’m right handed). This way the flat side of the knife is down for the side of the cut I’m retaining.
Next is my Tina 605… I appreciate this knife, but I don’t love it. It holds an edge well, it does it’s job well, but… A single bevel for cutting toward yourself.
A german grafting knife (unknown):
This is a german grafting knife someone was offering. It’s a nice knife but too darned small. I wish it was the size of the Tina, I think I would really like it. As it is, it’s too small to be comfortable in my hand. A single bevel for cutting toward yourself.
Opinel #6
This is a double beveled knife with a carbon blade. I think it’s the first knife I used for grafting. I didn’t find the double bevel bad for grafting at all, you learn to account for it. I did a lot of field grafts with this knife including bark grafts and clefts. I use the single bevels now, but always have this knife available too. It’s what Stephen Hayes grafts with.
I need to sand the handles of these and apply a coat of boiled linseed oil. I have a couple shapton stones for sharpening and a 300 / 1000 diamond plate. The steel diamond plate is great for flattening the other stones. I have 3000, 8000, and 16,000 whet stones. The 16,000 is great for adding a secondary bevel when appropriate.
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I’m not a knife collector by any means and I like the grafting knives I have, particularly the A M Leonard.
But all these descriptions and pictures have me searching ebay…
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Thank you for posting the photo and link.
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I have two of the due buoi grafting knifes and im pretty pleased with them. They seem to have a very nice quality to them.
One thing I really like about the Tina 605 is that the sharpened portion of the blade begins very close to the wood handle. So my grip, and hence control, is closer to the cutting edge.
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When I got my Tina knife 7 years ago it was 90 at least. I like it, but we also have a single bevel fixed blade our son made that works fine.
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I bought my Tina knives in 1972, local hardware store for $24.95 each. No Amazon yet!
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Further report. Last week I got all of my knives razor sharp. Today I went out in the garage to practice grafting. My favorite is still the old bear by far. I think I like it so much because of the substantial handle. The Tina just does not feel good for me.
I like the opinels too but the old bear is a straight edge instead of curved.
I realized one problem with chisel ground knives. When making a cleft cut the knives tends to drift away from you rather than making a straight down cut. It’s hard for me to compensate for this. I will be using a v ground opined #8 for my cleft cuts.
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inflation converter says it is $172 equivalent!
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To me it doesn’t matter what you use, price wise doesn’t matter. In my case it’s just a matter to get it done. Did a lot of grafting since I out into grafting. I might have used a different knife before. It’s like a fisherman, hand him something and can catch fish. This knife has been good enough. All my other knives I use serve a purpose too, very soft wood, very small sions you name it, with trial and error’s my collection has been helpful to say the least.
This might be my last year grafting, will probably hold a auction to get rid of all my garden stuff, pruners, loppers,orchard ladders and what not.
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Hi ! Is this not a simple kitchen knife? If so it resolves a problem of buying grafting knife for me.
I bought that cheap simple victorinox grafting knife from AML last spring… cheap… but works well. The blade is beveled on one side… it sharpens up nicely… i have done several whip/toung, whip, mod cleft, bark grafts… with it and have not been disappointed at all.
Try one… I bet you will like it.
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I am still using my modified carbon steel Morakniv. The flat grind is easy to adjust to, and I lopped/filed the tip to a sheep’s foot profile.
I would love a stainless folder, but I have not found any with a proper safety lock and a steel that I find suitable. There are a number of stainless chisel-ground folding/locking knives with a sheep’s foot tip, but they are all beveled on the wrong side for a right-handed person.
You might like the old bear. Locking, sort of a sheepsfoot blade. Chisel ground for righties.
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I’ve been considering getting the AM Leonard knife. I’m curious about the ding or wave issue. Is it much trouble in practice? Out just something to watch out for. Honestly, almost anything will be better than the clam knife I converted over to single bevel.
I love the AM Leonard knife and use it most of the time. It stays quite sharp. I think any knife with a fine edge and a nice taper will tend to get a little damage if it is hit wrong, etc., but it hasn’t gotten in the way.
Since that post I also picked up a Kamphaus Soingen 4950 grafting knife on ebay. It was new, old stock, so made a while back. I think I might like it even more than the AM Leonard, but possibly just cause it is a cool older knife.
Both are a pretty big step up from the Zenport, but I successfully grafted well over 100 trees with the Zenport, so that was a pretty good deal for $12 on Amazon.
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