I may not be grafting a damn thing

[BG1977]

My Naye grafting knife was not sharp enough out of the box. I could not get a straight cut making a cleft graft wedge, it always curves back in concave.

So I tried to sharpen it on a 1000 grit diamond whetstone, and now it’s even worse.

What am I doing wrong?

[bleedingdirt]

You need a single beveled blade.

[BG1977]

Everything is closed, where am I going to get one of those?

[jcguarneri]

Start with 200-300 grit, then 600, then 1000. You can theoretically sharpen with just the fine stone, but it will take a loooong time, you’ll get tired and frustrated, and make mistakes. It’s much faster, (hilariously faster) stepping through the grits. It should be SHARP coming off the coarse grit, then you make it smoother. These are the words of someone who only had fine stones until recently, even though I knew better! If you don’t have coarser stones or they’re not in the budget, you can get by with sandpaper of varying grits.

[BG1977]

It’s 400 on one side and 1000 on the other.

[jcguarneri]

That should work ok. Preferably, get a coarser grit as well, but at least make sure it’s noticeably sharp on the 400 side before moving on. Make sure you’re keeping a constant angle, or you’ll never get there. Also, take your time. It’s not a race, and you’ll be more consistent.

[thepodpiper]

If you are crunched for time just get a box cutter.

[marknmt]

As @thepodpiper said, use a box cutter, or a utility knife. And although a single-bevel knife is preferable you certainly can cut grafts with an ordinary jack knife or some such.

And I know you can order any number of grafting knives from Amazon or elsewhere:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=lm&q=amazon+grafting+knife&ia=shopping

[jcguarneri]

Naye grafting knife

Hard to be certain from the product description, but it looks like the Naye knives are single bevel. No idea on the quality of the steel, but (with exceptions, caveats, etc) that matters mostly for how quick it is to sharpen and how well it holds an edge and less so for how sharp you can get it. You could sharpen a butter knife so that you can graft with it, but it probably wouldn’t hold an edge for too many cuts. The upside to poor edge retention is that it usually means you’ll be able to resharpen quickly. If your knife takes a long time to sharpen it probably means it will hold that edge well once you get there.

[jcguarneri]

Since it only says “stainless steel” without specifying the type, I’m guessing it’s 440A. It’s highly malleable and takes well to stamping, so it’s favored for inexpensive knives. This steel makes for a knife that’s inexpensive to make, will almost never rust, and is hard to break. However, I find that it’s a bit harder to sharpen and doesn’t hold an edge as well, because of the malleability.

@marknmt, you know a fair bit about steel if I recall correctly, so feel free to correct me.

[marknmt]

Sounds good to me! I have an idea I don’t know nearly as much about steel as I usta think I did.

[ramv]

It’s not as easy to sharpen a knife as it appears. You have to maintain the angle with respect to the stone very constant. It takes practice. Lots of it. Even then you won’t get it as sharp as the pros.
Short of getting a high quality knife sharpener, the only choice really is to get a box cutter or utility knife from Home Depot.

[jcguarneri]

I respectfully and slightly disagree. If you take your time, pay close attention to what you’re doing and your angles, and stop periodically to look at your edge with a magnifying glass (or zoom in with your phone camera), you can pick it up pretty quickly. I do agree that it takes a lot of practice to do it quickly and without having to think about placement too much. Go slow. Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast. And remember, practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent. You have to get perfect before you practice.

[Auburn]

Box cutter is all I use. Works well.

[Drew51]

You can use any knife, you can get one on Amazon and it will be there soon.
Here is a good series on grafting check the knife sharpening video for help with that. Episode 5.

[BG1977]

I managed, but lost some scionwood. Did bark and cleft grafts.

Ernie’s Choice peach scion:

One is a bark graft, others cleft.

[BG1977]

Glenglo (sane stock tree, being top worked):

[aap]

I get by for the last 50 some years with this as my final collection. I get done with this, close 500 tree’s so far.

Did some 2 weeks ago, no failures.

[ztom]

Box cutter blades are usually coated with a thin layer of oil. If you use one, wash the blades first with dish soap and water to remove any oil.

[Poncho65]

I had a very tiny rootstock amd scion this year that was not working with my grafting knife at all. So the utilty blade knife came in to save the day. I cleaned it with alcohol first and it worked a treat on the smaller caliper