What is the difference between spherical concave cutters and concave cutters? What is the spherical benefit over the concave cutter? Which one would you purchase ?
Bill D
1 Like
Standard concave cutters have straight blades and produce a cut that has a shallow V shape. They are the workhorse for pruning branches and are both lower cost and easier to sharpen than spherical concave cutters.
Spherical concave cutters leave a shallow rounded cut like a shallow bowl. They are very good for cutting branches from the trunk to leave a spot that should heal over. Spherical knob cutters are closely related, but often have a tighter curvature leaving a deeper bowl. They are more expensive and harder to sharpen.
I would buy the standard concave cutters until you decide you need the spherical version. A curved carving chisel is a lower cost alternative for occasionally rounding the bottom of a cut.
1 Like
The biggest advantage to the spherical concave cutters is that you can approach the cut from any angle. With the straight concave cutters, you have to have the handles more or less perpendicular to the branch/trunk. Since I got them, I only use my straight concave cutters for larger cuts, because it is a larger tool. Knob cutters are harder to use on branches (as opposed to knobs) because they are not angled.
1 Like