That looks too excessive. I get a perfect cut on one side and the other has 1/3 or so of the bark knocked off. Try messing with the calibration. You also need to notch out above the blades like I showed above with a round rasp.
Dax
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Iāll bet the problem is that those blades arenāt sharp. I bought one of those 12 or 15 years ago, and even new, the blades werenāt sharp enough. And they looked like a pain to sharpen. I think I still have it somewhere.
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Your alignment might not be good. I get nearly perfect cuts as long as I have it calibrated properly.
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@Outdoor334 all you gotta do is look at the cuts above of the figs shown and the black walnut I did. The worst I am seeing is 1/3 off one side. A lot are near perfect on both sides or surely close to anyway.
Dax
Maybe a dumb question, but how do you calibrate this tool (I have similar issues as outdoor334) ?
I gotta ask the silly question first and that is did you notch out the top yet? Excuse me I didnāt see you asked @ramv.
Itās all visual. Iāve spent up to 45 minutes calibrating these tools & still decided to do a better job.
Youāre looking from every direction at the pieces and the spacing and the perfect ācenterdnessā (not a real word) of the anvil and that the anvil is on a flat plane with with the other piece in front of it that the wood rests on; and the absolute perfect spacing between the blades and the anvil. Everything has to be locked in/dialed in. I mean itās tedious to do it. And then the blades have to be perfect. I start with the blades and then do the tool pieces. And you may have to takes the blades off again if your anvil is perfect. And do them again. Itās back and forth, back and forth until youāre blind or that you got real lucky in the beginning.
Dax
I used mine today and I think the cuts are pretty good. The blades look spot on matching. I need to notch out and I donāt have a rasp so it is something I will have to purchase. Any special kind? I have a small dremel but nothing that will grind that down.
Just a regular about 1/4 wide round rasp. I have a set of files and itās included.
A dremel with the right grinding attachment would work great too, Katy. I donāt own a dremel and donāt know about their attachments though.
Dax
Might look for a bigger stone for the dremel while Iām about. Not sure how well it will work because it is low power and battery but as you said the proper attachment might work. I did notice a bit of tearing due to not enough width there but it didnāt seem very bad. My worst problem is standing on my head trying to keep my glasses from falling off my face to get the blades straight on the branchā¦and then the attempts to match in mirror image the lopsided cut on the scionā¦ it could be comical if there wasnāt so much swearing!!! 
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Tooo funny!
Get a rasp. They gotta be a couple bucks at most. Itāll take 5-minutes. Any old spray paint you have laying around, spray it on something and q-tip it over the wound. You gotta protect the tool.
Dax
I didnt notch the top out and still get pretty clean cuts. Perhaps my scionwood is not very thick.
Once aligned, I press quickly without hesitation. My wife gets scared every time as it makes a racket.
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I tried practicing on some oak branches. I thought I might have to stand on itā¦ the mulberry today was easy!
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Snap the wrist girlā¦ snap it!
Crunch the hand girl!
āCrunchā
Dax
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That ācrunchā was the bones!!
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You can get carbide rasp-like bits on an 1/8" shank for dremels. They come in various shapes. The elongated oval one is probably my most used bit, great for enlarging holes in metal.
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Katy,
This is what all 80+ year olds, and those to-be, have to look forward to!! This is something that happened at an assisted living center. The people who lived there had small apartments but all ate at a central cafeteria. One morning one of the residents didnāt show for breakfast. My wife went upstairs and knocked on his door to see if he was OK. She could hear him through the door and he said that he was running late and would be down shortly, so she went back to the dining area.
An hour later he hadnāt arrived so she went back up towards his room and found him on the stairs. He was coming down the stairs but was having a hell of time. He had a death grip on the hand rail and seemed to have trouble getting his legs to work right.
She told him she was calling an ambulance but he told her no, he wasnāt in pain and wanted breakfast. She helped him down the stairs and he ate breakfast.
When he tried to return to his room he was completely unable to go up the first stair step so they called an ambulance for him.
A couple hours later she called the hospital to see how he was doing.The receptionist said he was fine, he just had both of his legs in one side of his boxer shorts.
I am sending this to my children so they donāt sell the house before they know all the facts.
ā
an email I read this morning!
Dax
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I must be sure to examine myself each morningā¦and stay out of boxer shorts!!!
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Katy and I were messaging last night. And I did a short video to show her something rather than explain with photos. Itās so much easier to see something in motion if you will.
Part of the premise was I told her which she knew is to do a cleft you must cut into pith somewhere. If you get too close to the cambium/green tissue, you risk the knife driving right into your hand. It can happen so quickly that you cannot prepare for it.
Dax
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Why dont you use the tool to cut the rootstock too and get a nice match ? This tool does not make straigh cuts, rather curved ones, which allows a better grip of the scionwood to the rootstock but iām not sure the curved cut allows a good contact in a cleft graft
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