If you compare the tina 605 and the victorinox 3.9050 the tina 605 is the better grafting knife and it is not even close. There is no doubt about it. It is at least a class better in every regard. But it also comes with a price 4 times the price of the victorinox. The victorinox still is a usable grafting knife for the occasional grafter. I wouldn’t want to use it for a lot of grafts eg. bench grafting. The handle will get slippery over time and the steel is not as hard as the tinas steel and therefore can’t hold its edge as long.
I still like my victorinox better than every opinel I used. My opinels don’t hold their edge as good, though they should be/are made out of harder steel (I use the carbon steel version). I only use them for rougher duties, eg. doing cleft grafts into thicker wood and as a allround garden knife.
The victorinox has the more forgiving blade. With the tina you have to have better technique, since the blade is that hard (60° Rockwell) it is more brittle also.
I still use my victorinox. Since I now was able to compare the tina 605 to it, I personally would buy the tina the next time. I will go on using the victorinox since I rarely do more than 20 - 30 grafts per year.
The grafter who wants or needs the best possible tool should buy the tina 605 though. Thats my opinion.
And actually I feel thats what was already written in this topic.
I learned most of my grafting skills from watching Skillcult’s (Steven) videos and also a lot of Stephen Hayes. I will echo Skillcult’s ideas of skills over gear. I mostly use Opinel knives for all my grafting. I have a small one and a big one. These are standard ground knives and I prefer them over single bevel because you can cut in either direction depending on what you are doing. They are easy to sharpen.
Stephen Hayes uses and recommends standard bevel Opinel knives.
I practice a lot on scraps and also when I was starting I practiced on autumn olive bushes.
Like Steven Edholm I also like japanese waterstones for sharpening. I prefer shapton stones but they are probably more expensive than King which is also a great stone.
Just my opinions
Just imagine both cuts mirror this. I guess the main question is whether two completely vertical cuts on both scion and stock can knit. Most cuts you see have an angle at least on the scion.
The appeal here is its easier to tie/tape/parafilm it tight with pressure than a splice graft, but not as difficult to cut as a W &T.
Your graft could heal perfectly fine. I see no problem with it.
In my eyes it has 2 main disadvantages.
Your cuts are fare more difficult to do right, than a splice graft. That “cleft” cut into your rootstock and scion tends to split the wood and therefore it is more difficult to do a clean cut. Thats less serious with thin diameter wood. The thicker your wood the more difficult your cuts are to do.
Plus it is hard to do all that angles right. Those angles need to be the same in order to make a perfect fit between the scion an the rootstock. In a splice graft you have some room to move your scion and rootstock to make them fit. You wouldn’t have that possibility.
It is far more difficult to align cambium of scion and rootstock because of that straight cuts. The cambium layers are running parallel to each other with those cuts (along the “cleft”-part). So scion and rootstock have to be very similar in diameter to make the cambium layers touch. Again, in a splice graft you have some room to do cambium crosses.
So in conclusion I think your graft would work perfectly fine if you do your cuts perfectly. But that is a quite an if. A splice graft is much easier to do and is more forgiving with less perfect fits. If you do splice cuts long enough it is absolutely no problem to tie the graft tight without moving the scion. Thinking about doing the cuts in your picture I really think a whip and tongue graft is still much easier to do and of course easier to fit together.
Thats just a mater of training. You really have to lock your wrist, doing the cuts out of your shoulder more.
Look into this video, he is doing a really good job explaining the essentials.
You just have do start the tongues at the same place on the scion and on the stock. I always eyeball the middle of the cut and then go up half way, starting the tongue into the scion there (holding the scion upside down in that moment). Then I do the same at the rootstock (but root down of course). You absolutely can do the tongue from the middle of your cut, if you want it to be even more easy. You can adjust the starting point over time as you please, making the tongue cut longer. If you start from the middle of the splice cut, the tongue is quite short. I tend to cut the tongue to the end of the splice cut, if that makes any sense to you.
Cut resistant gloves are inexpensive and there are multiple styles that leave you with plenty of dexterity for grafting. They have saved my fingers more than once.
I didnt read the whole thread, so this was probably covered repeatedly, but there are a few considerations:
1 as mentioned a single bevel can help
2 so can practice
3 so can a nice, tight wrap w parafilm or other very moisture-saving wrap…i have had clearly concave cuts i was able to partly or fully rejoin by wrapping tightly enough to squeeze the surfaces together
All that said, the biggest lesson i learned in grafting is your cuts need to be GOOD. Not PERFECT, Just GOOD. Hell, even ugly grafts can take at least sometimes, but the plain, simple truth is that any graft can fail, and all you are doing is damage control—a clean, perfect union helps. So does a moisture-saving wrap. But every graft has at least potential. With double-bevel boxcutters and sometimes clearly concave cuts (i bought a planer years back and used it one season) i still do over 80% successful graffs, and i am miles from “expert.” I am not saying not to work to clean your cuts, it is a very worthhile pursuit. But i am saying to mitigate your mistakes—sometimes, i make additional cuts to clean up that belly, even though “experts” have said it will all but make jesus himself weep, Sometimes, i add additional parafilm wraps…or move the graft to shade.or brace it with wire or rubber also. The trick to grafting isnt to get a perfect cut, it is to allow scion and rootstock to join before scion dries and dies…perfect cuts are just one way to maximize your potential success in getting there.
The bottom line is i am not arguing against orthodoxy, or best practice. One day i may still buy a single bevel knife. But I am so comfortable with the knives i like that i can graft in dusk, i can graft half-tanked (long, not particularly proud or recommended story), I can do multiple graffs, and again my rates are not 100% but they are solid…remember grafting was old before the Romans got good with making steel, even. And WAY before parafilm. Dont be afraid to just do the job “well.” Well can get you far.
Peaches are really hard to graft and is what half my grafting is. The problem is they are slow to heal. I used parafilm and that helped, then I tried buddy tape and it really made a difference. It gave the scion more time to heal. Buddy tape seems exactly like parafilm, so not sure why it worked better? It is expensive!! Anything Japanese is superior I must say. Cameras, Compact discs, if they make it, it’s the best. I have a 1981 cassette deck, a Nakamichi. This is one of the best cassette decks ever made. In 1981 they sold for $1,800.00. My deck today sells for $1,000.00 Yes a cassette deck! .
Way off topic sorry, well not really just demonstrating how superior Japanese made products rule the world. I only prune with ARS pruners, no doubt the world’s best.
Grafting season is about here so they are sold out. You can buy perforated or not. I like the perforated as it makes you use a small piece and so you tend to stretch it as you should be doing. It’s not cheap! You get what you pay for in this case. It’s worth it.
Both types are sold out but you can be put on a waiting list. I doubt they will have any for this season. This place is the cheapest I found, others are over 30 bucks. So they sell out of this extremely excellent product very quickly. I have 2 rolls right now
I wasn’t happy with any of the grafting knives on the market, so I modified a Morakniv Craftline-Q 510 carbon steel blade. It was $15.05 delivered from Amazon, with free prime trial…
Before
The scandi grind makes smooth cuts. I could not bring myself to buy a Victorinox. I don’t care for folding knives that do not safety-lock, and their steel is suitable only for butter knives.
I have been using this carpet cutter for a number of years for grafting and budding. It is quite similar to the one used by Bradybb. It uses readily replaceable inexpensive blades an makes long tapered cuts that leave a bit of bark at the end that needs to be nipped off.
I like the mod on the Mora but will have to disagree about your view on locking blades. If a knife is used correctly it will not close on you and locks can fail just as easily if a knife is used incorrectly. Victorinox steel is soft yes but I have quite a few of them (many different models of them) and I can keep them sharp and can cut anything just fine with them. Technique is key to cutting just as much as the blade.
My opinion still stands. I have seen people rely on a lock and get cut badly because the lock failed or they weren’t paying attention. It’s like driving badly and depending on the air bags and seat belts to save your life. A person will cut more carefully if they aren’t believing a locking knife will save them from being cut.
I use locking blades some myself but one shouldn’t discount nonlocking blades because they say they aren’t safe. I have been cut by both and it is never the knives fault, it is user error.
