What made me smile was the big sticking plaster on his thumb! Sharp knife, that, however expert you are ;-)

Same knife I use. Conifer takes this year: 89.5%. I'm much slower because I'm grafting some wood toothpick caliper.

Dax

Here is a link that might be useful: Grafting Conifers Results 2014

Pffft.. amateurs

ha ha ha ha.

Dax

Sharp knife that, however expert you are.
You're right about that, these knives are sharpened with a whetstone and kept as sharp as a straight razor.
The Univ of Ky has a grafting video but am not going to bother linking it (not the best). All wasted motion must be eliminated. The knife only leaves the hand when you get up for lunch.
Perhaps the best tip I ever got about grafting was from the propagator at Hillier Nursery. He told me to think of the blade cutting like a guillotine and use the entire length. Since the Tina knife is sharpened only on one side you make the perfect cut.
Here's a veneer graft on Aralia elata 'Variegata' wrapped in raffia.
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I'd love to get these on their own roots to eliminate the suckering which is usually a nuisance.
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That's the same knife I use. It's a wonderful tool.

Something I recently acquired: Fieldcraft Topgrafter

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All I had to do was thoroughly clean it. The bench mounting hardware I'll have soon.

Dax

youtube video a real pleasure to watch. Notice, he doesn't set the knife down, no wasted motion. Notice the angle of the knife blade when he makes the cut, notice he puts the understock to his chest. 20 seconds per graft, this man likely served an apprenticeship in Holland where he learned his craft.

On the advice of my hort.tutor, (who had spent every summer as a contract chip budder on roses since he was a lad) I bought a Tina knife 13 years ago - a lovely thing. I also have a little curved pruner. The sheer pleasure of sharpening one (22degrees) on a stone and a leather strop! When I learned about rose growing (it was my 'thing' for a long while) I watched a pair of Latvians working for Trevor White, a grower of old roses in East Anglia - one of them paring the bud, while the other made a quick T.cut in the cambium, then the first wrapped the graft in tape. They did around 200 roses in an hour - backs of solid steel after hours bent double in the field. No cushy bench grafting.

I never graft a rose now - I only grow them on their own roots from semi-ripe cuttings or seed...but as I only grow species anyway, there is no need to 'push' the scion with a vigorous stock.

I didn't notice that about the knife when I watched that sometime ago. Watch this fella here graft chestnuts.

Dax