All About Pocket Knives

I picked up a Tina #605 recently. It has a carbon steel blade and is built like a tank!
I did some research on line and found it is called a left-handed grafting knife.
I am not sure what makes it left handed as opposed to right handed, but that is what it is called.
I found it for sale on 4 sites; the least expensive was $91.74, but Amazon and another site both sell it for $119.99.
According to one of the sites selling the knife, it has "a hand forged 2.5 inch blade that is honed to a razor sharp edge." Another site says the knives are hand made.
I suppose $100 is not a bad price for a hand made knife that is built like a tank, with a hand forged blade!

Frank, (Capt, Farrel) was kind enough to search their website for me (it is in German). He found the company was founded in 1854 by Johan Friedrich Schwille, and since 1890 it has been exporting knives to 32 other countries.
They also make specialty knives for other crafts like bookbinders and shoemakers, as well as saw blades.
Thanks Frank!

I have been using this knife around my shop for a month or two and have not needed to sharpen it yet.
It is an amazing piece of German cutlery and the 4" handle makes it a delight to use!

The nail nick is on the correct side for a right-handed knife so the mystery of the left-hand moniker continues. I don't think I'd pay $100 when a less than $20 Victorinox Florist will do the same job and probably just as well. Unless of course, I were a tool/knife snob.

Hi Dale,
It looks like a really handy little used. A good pick-up my friend.
As for the left hand title, is the grind the same on both sides, or does it favor one side?
Cheers,
Tony.

Schradenut wrote:As for the left hand title, is the grind the same on both sides, or does it favor one side?

Judging by the pictures, the blade is chisel-ground on the mark side only, leaving the pile side flat. Which makes sense, a southpaw would lay the blade flat on the pile side to cut away from themself. The long handle/short blade gives better control...

All pure speculation on my part

Great eyes! You guys nailed it!

It is chisel ground, the pile side being the flat side, but instead of being a flat grind or hollow grind on the mark side, the blade was slack ground which makes it slightly convex instead of flat like the pile side. There is a slight secondary grind or bevel on the pile side right at the edge, which may be the result of heavy deburring.

I totally missed that, although it is easier to see in the pictures than on the knife, unless you are looking for it.

Thanks guys for the better eyes!

You re welcome Dale! I was a bit shocked about the prices of Tina knives too but I guess if you are a professional gardener you might want to use the best you can get. There must be a difference to other grafting knives or Tina would have gone out of Business 149 years ago!

Sometimes the high price of a knife has to do with the warranty or guarantee.
Does the knife have a life time guarantee similar to Cutco knives????
They will repair or replace the knife no matter what?
Or the company has been a Family name in the gardening field for so many years professional gardeners buy nothing else.

Whatever the reason the knife looks well built and made of the right materials to last a lifetime.
JW~

I know this is a LOOONG dead thread, but I want to clarify for posterity that is a right-hand grafting knife. The default cut in grafting is to pull towards you with your thumb acting as control. That being said, some folks do like to cut away from themselves and therefor use the opposite hand knife.

As for Tina quality and price, they are known for holding a much better edge than the aforementioned inexpensive knives, coming properly sharp out of the box, and for having a good build quality. They're also kind of synonomous with "the best" and have had kind of a snowballing of reputation and pricing, kind of like Gransfors Bruk axes. I don't personally think they're worth the current going rate, especially seeing how quickly it's gone up in recent years. But they're popular for a reason.

Our family has been in the nursery business, growing plants, for over 66 years. We learned to buy and use the very best tools we could find. My father, the grafter in the family, used Tina knives before I ever knew the difference between carbon steel, stainless steel, etc. If you are making your living with a tool and your hands, you use the best tool you can buy. Tina knives are not pretty, and while they used to be made very sharp, they require further honing to be used as a grafting knife. However, they are indeed built like a tank. Although some may consider them pricey, I still consider them a bargain. Butch2

Welcome Butch . Thanks for your info. I know the quality of Tina has been earned.

I collect horticultural knives ,mainly what's called rooster combs or farmers jack pattern. Where do you all perform the grafting work, and what is your sharpening method?

Lyle, We no longer graft plants as my father passed 17 years ago and I never mastered the art. When he did, we were in the Piedmont section of North Carolina. My father grafted Japanese Maples. The bark on these trees is very thin and one has to be a master grafter to consistently match the surfaces of the scion and understock. My father learned from a gentleman named Ian Baldwin. You may recognize the name. In fact, Ian Baldwin recommended TIna horticulural knives to my father.
He sharpened his grafting knife on a Hard Arkansas stone, using spittle as the lubricant. I remember he put in a lot of time sharpening his grafting knife before he used it. BTW, I too like the looks of farmer jacks, but am trying to fill some other holes in my collection first.

Tina, these are great knives! Although they don't quite match the Kunde und Sohn garden knives in terms of elegance. There are a few non-obvious points here that I realized when I started using the 615 model. True, I use it for other purposes, so I got a few dents on the cutting edge, but still the knife is extremely useful. The spring inside is polished, the tang of the knife itself is not polished. The more I use it, the more I am sure that this is not done for economy, but specifically so that the lubricating oil lasts longer in the joint. Although I may be wrong. And the safety point - Tina and Kunde have very low opening angles, which makes them safe if the blade accidentally folds. They do not turn into a trap like others. To clarify, I made a mini-video

https://youtu.be/c5nKUUDT5zw

Thanks