When to use concave cutter vs. spherical cutter?

darrellw

When would one use a spherical cutter instead of a standard concave cutter?

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These tools have a nasty terminology, with the "concave" cutter making basically flat wounds, and the knob cutters (kubi-kiri) making distinctly concave wounds, and then the semi-concave cutter doing... oh well some of each.

I use a knob cutter when on very young material that calluses quickly and grows fast. Sometimes the wound tissue on a trident for example, will come up so fast and tall that it forms a bump. If it's in a grow box and growing actively, a knob cutter or a slightly less aggressive semi-concave cutter might be the ideal.

Whereas, concave cutters are great for more slowly growing (containerized) bonsai, and for species that grow slowly or have thin bark, like azalea, where sometimes even a CONVEX cutter like Masakuni developed might be used. An older knob cutter can be great for working down the tap root of younger trees, too.




That's what I do. Hope it helps some. Actually in my opinion, the semi-concave tools are underutilized!

Regards,

Matt

Regards,

Matt

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darrellw

Thanks, Matt!