This is just a piece of very good steel with sharply pointed blade shape at the end. Often used without a handle. Again, I prefer the Japanese laminated steel, but only the highest quality Japanese, the lower quality Japanese seem very brittle. The Swiss or German versions are very, very good, in some ways tougher, less likely to break off the extreme tip, which is the problem with all these knives, but they do take longer to sharpen. If you are a beginner, I would recommend the Swiss or German ones.
These are two of the knives, the one at the top is a Japanese laminated blade and the one at the bottom is a Swiss blade with handle.
You won't need this until you come to cutting the rose. I recommend the American X-acto scalpels in the small size, they hold their blades closer to the end and are therefore more stable than the English Swann Morton ones. The Canadian Veritas type are as good as the X-acto but nicer looking and therefore more expensive. However either would be fine. These are for piercing the rose and I will be recommending a way of modifying the blades for this purpose. Also get the little fine sawblade to fit this handle, it will be very useful for cutting off the ends of the bars.
