I’m guessing the answer is using a sharpening stone and practice, practice, practice. I’ve never been very good at using a stone to sharpen knives (haven’t really spent much time practicing either) and I usually revert to one of these:
They work great on kitchen knives and get them much sharper than I can get with a stone. Would they work with an Opinel knife? After watching the Stephen Hayes videos, I dutifully ordered an Opinel #6 and I’m wondering if this thing will do more harm than good.
A traditional grafting knife is sharpened on only one side, a chisel grind. It is very easy to sharpen on a stone because you only have to sharpen one side at a fixed angle.
I thought that might be the case. But is the Opinel only sharpened on one side? I’m in an airport and didn’t bring it along (obviously) so I can’t check it. From watching the Stephen Hayes videos, and a cursory look at the knife, it appears to be just a normal Jack knife
Some Opinels may be sharpened on one side and some are not, go figure. As for sharpening, the easiest and the most effective way to sharpen knives (if you have little experience with sharpening with Arcansas stones and setting the angle) is a set by Lansky/Gatco/Apex, etc. I have a Chinese “clone” of the Apex system and it works pretty good, but the stones and the overall built leave more to be desired copared with the original. The advantage of those systems is that you can set any angle you prefer for any blade and make it razor sharp quite easily.
I use a large diamond sharpener of the type used for carving knives for my loppers and hand pruners. It’s not very technical to do the sharpening and the more surface the longer the sharpener lasts. I wear them out and they are pretty expensive.
You want to also put the whole flat side on the stone to take the burr off the wedge. So, both sides should be sharpened but mainly the angle. The main thing to avoid is trying to put an angle on the other side so it is no longer a single wedge - that ruins the knife.
Some people can graft with such a knife but I found it a lot harder myself.
The one exception is a knife that has a long wedge - 1/4" or more on either side that is a pure wedge that you are holding all to the stone when sharpening. A few times when I could not find a grafting knife I used a knife like that and it worked OK. These long wedge knives are not common but I have a few of them. They look like a hunting knife but sharpened differently. … I looked it up and this is called a “scandi” knife, its 100% wedge and is a traditional Scandinavian knife.
You can re-sharpen it in any way you want, with an angle you prefer, either with a sharpening system or with stones. Pocket knives are usually shipped sharpened at ~ 30-35 degrees, while I prefer 20 degrees for pretty much anything I do with them, so I always re-sharpen a new knife.
Recommended to me by Doug Jones, chairman, AZRFG. Havalon has various models (handle designs and colors) on their website, and 2.5" replaceable blade models too.
While I agree that chisel edge is best, I would wait to see how this one will work for you. Next time you prune your trees, practice some long sloping cuts on any 1 year old wood that you will be discarding. You don’t want curved cuts that will leave a gap between mating surfaces after being wrapped.
FYI, I use a cheap $12 dollar Victorinox florist grafting knife for most cuts. I use a large Opinel for making two-handed, flap cuts for side grafts on larger stock.
I have an Opinel #8, and as far as I remember it’s original sharpening, that would suffice for everyday cutting applications, but I personaly would hardly consider it sufficient for grafting since the sharpening angle was not sharp enough. IMO, even a box cutter would do a better job. It still could be done, I guess, but leaving the sharpening as is would add up to the risks of an unsuccessful grafting outcome. I personally haven’t tried my Opinel for grafting, but should I want to do this, I would definitely re-sharpen it as Scott suggests. Other than that, the steel on it (I have the Inox version) is IMO very good and given the wedge and shape of the blade it could make a very good grafting knife.
For splice grafts, which I deem to be the most efficient method, an Italian double bladed pruning shear is the magic method. Not cut fingers and quick good cuts.
I did it that way (albeit with my Felcos rather than the Italian pruners) last season and love it. It’s amazingly efficient, especially when coupled with the rubber tape. You can add a tongue if you want to, but I don’t think it’s necessary. It’s easier and faster than cleft and the splice is much tidier (grows out much more nicely) than a cleft. I’ll only use cleft for fairly badly mismatched wood from now on. If I did a lot of grafting I’d definitely invest in the Italian shears Alan mentions.
Yes, I used to use a bypass and it worked fine- the double bladed just gives you a bit more control and allows longer cuts. A good percentage are like perfect matches between the scion and the shoot on the tree- if you have a good selection of scion wood for matching.
I join them with vinyl electric tape and just do a straight splice. Tongue and groove is too much work and harder to match up. I see no advantage to it at all and wonder why it’s so popular with serious grafters. I’d rather develop skills that actually give me an advantage.
Before I learned about some of the alternative wraps (i.e., adhesive tapes or, my favorite, the rubber tape) for binding the pieces I liked whip and tongue because it lent some stability to the splice, helping to hold it all together while I fumbled with the rubber band or whatever. I suspect it’s a holdover from the days when grafters used twine or some such. Plus, it adds an element of craft a hobbiest like myself might enjoy. I used to imagine that it made the union stronger, but I doubt it now.
How much of an angle do you cut the wood?
And do the two pieces have to be the same diameter to start?
I was fooling around with some clippers a few weeks ago and I had a hard time getting the same angle on both pieces. I ended up cutting and cutting and recutting and I quickly ran out of wood on both sides of the would be graft!!
I was (and still am) a complete novice when I did this so maybe I just need to get a hundred practice cuts in before I get the hang of it?
Are there any tips for success using this method?
Like do you make one cut on the stock wood and then try to match the scion to that with multiple cuts on it? Or the other way around - cut the scion once and only once?
And do you use paraffin tape under the electrical tape, or do you just use electrical tape?
I’d love to hear any tips and tricks and dos and don’ts
Bart,
Are the clippers,pruners?Yes,keep practicing until it’s comfortable to make the longest angled cuts possible and maybe use some other kind of non fruiting wood,so your real grafting stuff is not used up,unless there is a lot to spare. Brady
Bart, what I do is to take my nippers (very standard Felco # 2 pruning shears) and cut the rootstock (in my case this is always a small branch on the tree) at a place where it is as close as is practicable to the diameter of the scion I am using. The nippers are angled so that the cut is as narrow as possible. In other words, the cut is as far from square as the shears will let me get. Cut the scion the same way.
Have a piece of tape already stuck to the rootstock. Place the scion on the rootstock, and wrap carefully so that the alignment of the cambia is maintained. Because I am a fuss budget and love redundancy, I wrap the whole works with Parafilm. (Remember to wrap the scion completely too, and seal the end.) Hang a label on it and cross your fingers.
Alan says he uses vinyl electrical for the tape. Others like the rubber electrical tape (I think it’s 3M Temflex 2155) or equivalent readily available at big box stores.
