Recommend me a first concave cutter.

[oranjeaap]

Good news! Finally some of my trees are getting to the size where my regular garden tools start feeling inadequate. They still cut fine, it's just that healing would probably improve with the right tools.
I don't know where to start and after reading some basics I'm still overwhelmed by the choices. So here's some of my preferences and maybe you can point me in the right direction.

Must be available in Europe, or at the very least offer shipping to Europe.
I would prefer to buy directly from the manufacturer but if that complicates things too much a retailer would be ok.
Country of manufacture: Not important.
Material: Not important. I can do basic maintenance like cleaning and oiling but not looking for very high maintenance tools.
Size: No idea. You tell me. Branches are not thicker than my pinky.
Straight or rounded: No idea. What do you think is more useful for a first concave cutter?
Budget: Not important. However what is very important to me is good price/quality. Can be cheap, can be expensive as long as they are good value. In some of my other hobbies I found that for good value usually you want to avoid the bottom segment because you get what you pay for: Crap. And you want to avoid the very top segment because at some point the prices keep going up and things just get fancier but not necesarily "better" anymore. I hope that makes any sense.

Let me know what you think!

 

[Shibui]

Straight edge branch cutter seems to be much more versatile than the curved version so I'd definitely go for the straight.
They seem to come in 3 sizes:
180mm are very small. Probably only useful for the smallest trees.
210 is the usual size and seems to be most used.
280mm is big!
Branch cutters can bend or break if you try to cut things too big. I know because I already have 3 or 4 broken ones, including a couple of the 280mm cutters. Recommendation is branches should be less than half the size of the cutting blades.
I mostly use the 210 size because they are easy to use one handed and seem to cut most of what I need to chop.

Wazakura is a newer Japanese bonsai tool seller. They were (are?) offering a discounted price for BonsaiNut members. See this thread - https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/wazakura-bonsai-tools.57829/
The last post says the company is offering free shipping to France, Germany, Italy and Spain. maybe you can get free shipping to The Netherlands too?
I found them quick and easy to purchase. No problems with quality.
Kaneshin are another quality, Japanese supplier. Not cheap but very good quality. They also have online store and offer very quick delivery and great quality tools.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Temu and ebay sell them for about 15-20 euros.
They're cheap, chinese made, and I have been using mine for 7-8 years now.
Never oiled them, never did any maintenance apart from some wd40 if they've been wet.
I'm pretty satisfied with the price/quality in that regard.

 

[RJG2]

Straight edge branch cutter seems to be much more versatile than the curved version so I'd definitely go for the straight.
They seem to come in 3 sizes:
180mm are very small. Probably only useful for the smallest trees.
210 is the usual size and seems to be most used.
280mm is big!
Branch cutters can bend or break if you try to cut things too big. I know because I already have 3 or 4 broken ones, including a couple of the 280mm cutters. Recommendation is branches should be less than half the size of the cutting blades.
I mostly use the 210 size because they are easy to use one handed and seem to cut most of what I need to chop.

Wazakura is a newer Japanese bonsai tool seller. They were (are?) offering a discounted price for BonsaiNut members. See this thread - https://www.bonsainut.com/threads/wazakura-bonsai-tools.57829/
The last post says the company is offering free shipping to France, Germany, Italy and Spain. maybe you can get free shipping to The Netherlands too?
I found them quick and easy to purchase. No problems with quality.
Kaneshin are another quality, Japanese supplier. Not cheap but very good quality. They also have online store and offer very quick delivery and great quality tools.

I second wazakura - I have scissors from them and they are great. If you use a link from this site BonsaiNut earns some affiliate money to help support it.

https://wazakurajapan.com/?ref=rbX41nkR

If you're looking to heal places where you've cut off branches you probably also want knob cutters to make the cut more concave.

If you really want rounded branch cutters, wazakura doesn't have them yet - I would go directly to Kaneshin:

https://bonsai-tool.com/

 

[ShimpakuBonsai]

You can buy Tian Bonsai tools via Aliexpress.
These are good quality tools at a very reasonable price.

Tian Bonsai also produce tools for brands like Ryuga.

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

This has become my go-to concave cutter over the last few years. Good quality for the price and versatile. I like the rounded cut it makes, it’s a good hybrid of the concave and knob cutter. Checks all your boxes.

[KANESHIN of bonsai tool]Bonsai Concave (Branch) cutter Large "Round Edge" (KANESHIN) " Length 200mm " No.4

 

[oranjeaap]

I looked into Wazakura and Kaneshin and it seems shipping is kinda steep even for just 1 item. And I need to stay below a certrain pricepoint else I will get slapped with VAT and import duties adding a hefty 30% over the product+shipping total sum. While the price for the suggested 200-210mm carbon steels are acceptable to me, added shipping and taxes is a bit too much for me. I will settle for something cheaper and when those tools are no longer cutting it (pun very much intended) I might upgrade to fancier Japanese quality.

You can buy Tian Bonsai tools via Aliexpress.
These are good quality tools at a very reasonable price.

Tian Bonsai also produce tools for brands like Ryuga.

This was a very usefull comment, thank you. Tian seems to have good reviews and they have their own website and also Aliexpres page. The prices of those 2 dont exactly match, some are cheaper some are more expensive than on their website. Anyway, while comparing prices I found a third party seller on Aliexpress selling a small selection of Tian tools at hefty discount. The items match the items they have on sale on their website just at higher discount. Almost too good to be true honestly. The account is registered to the same name, adress and email used by Tian so im thinking it's maybe an outlet account so they can continue selling older stock. Or it's a scam and I'm getting an empty box. Or it's a scam and I'm getting fake low quality tools instead of the real deal. Or it's some other kind of scam.

 

[oranjeaap]

The tools I'm (supposedly) being send are from their "Professional Grade" series, using Chinese 4Cr14MoV steel.
In comparison to Kaneshin who don't actually mention what stainless steel they use, atleast not on their international page, but according to google might be Japanese SUS420J2.
With some research it seems the 4Cr14MoV is actually of higher quality than SUS420J2.
With free shipping, VAT being already included in the final price and able to split into seperate orders to avoid extra duties, I managed to order 4 different tools for the same price as 1 Kaneshin stainless tool would have cost me.
Makes you wonder, is the four-fold price worth the higher craftsmanship? (This is subjective ofcourse so no need to go into that discussion)
Well, it will depends of the quality of the tools I ordered. Will update once they arrive.

 

[oranjeaap]

Well they arrived today, packaged very well and looking great and very solid. The edges are aligned perfectly, slightly overlapping as they should. Can't compare to other brands as I dont own any but have worked with stainless tools in other fields. Not very impressed by the edge, not as sharp as I had hoped and not sharpened uniformly along the lenght of the edge. Slight bur on one of them. So first impression is extremely good value for money on the overall construction and materials. Finishing of the edge is not great but expectable and acceptable at this price point.
Will add some pictures later.