Hi folks
Just thought I would say hello from here in Devon in the UK where I have a passion that has got out of control for growing fruit trees ie. apples, pears, cherries & plums in pots! Yes, I did say pots, in a tiny space that you would never believe possible. I have found it is really interesting and I am learning more and more as each season passes us by and really enjoying the various challenges this hobby creates. I grow mainly cordons, a few espaliers and now am starting to experiment with a bending style for cherries. The young trees at 12 months old, start in 15Ltr. pots and then as they become more established are potted on into 25Ltr, 30ltr, 35ltr, 40ltr, 45ltr, 50ltr and 55ltr Smithy style tub pots depending on what is the most suitable next step up for that tree and what variety of tree it is. I will need to check out if you have a thread for the pot growing enthusiast as it is all a bit more critical but maybe easier to manage.
I have over the last three or four years gradually got into collecting or sometimes purchasing scion wood as well as various rootstocks so have tried grafting with various but not very impressive degrees of success!
So, consequently I was looking for something to make my life easier as well as less dangerous and after extensive searching and trying to get my head around the options I decided on a J68 Professional Grafting Tool as I really liked the design and thought it would do a good job as I am a bit of a perfectionist and wanted a proper tool rather than a gimmick.
Big Mistake!! What a ‘pigs ear’ of a tool this turned out to be. The blades are not of a sufficient quality to retain their shape when cutting and open up a gap under even slight pressure. The male anvil will not adjust close enough to the inner blades and is tilting down well below the female so not supporting the wood. I was not willing to try and bend the (what appeared to be a silver coloured cast metal) male anvil just in case it broke, jeopardising my chance of returning the item.
I did not achieve a single good trial cut even after extensive adjustment as far as was possible. As the wood was not cleanly cut it was difficult to remove the wood from the tool and the lower exit cut was unacceptably rough!
I then searched for more information and fortunately came across this great bulletin board and read the two threads concerned from back to front, where I realised it really is a game of chance as to whether you get a good tool or not, or get a tool that can be adjusted to work as intended. I had never heard of Zenport let alone realised they were a named manufacturer of a copy of the original Ragget Industries Topgrafter and now I realise, that I purchased one of how ever many companies there are in China making copies of the ‘original’ Zenport copy all to differing standards of quality and precision!
Goodness gracious, no wonder I found it confusing but now I believe I fully understand the situation I will return my generic un-named J68 for a refund as I know there are better ones out there.
The question is how to recognise this on the web and not make the same mistake again so just wondering if any of you more experienced grafters out there know of a reliable source for purchasing the better quality, fully adjustable ones with higher quality blades.
Well after all the hassle with the above I may have just dug a bigger hole for myself as I have ordered what is listed as a Zenport ZJ60 on Amazon so I am hoping it may be a ‘genuine’ Zenport reasonably good quality copy of the Scionon Multi Grafter so fingers crossed it works ok and arrives reasonably quickly as the buds on the stone fruits are just starting to enter the bud burst stage!
Hope you enjoyed my story and i look forward to being a part of your community.
Regards
Barrie
