Starting with Phil’s tree, this rather large Scots Pine was selected by Phil for a particular reason. Most people who had done the workshop wanted direction with their tree or refinement. Phil however was more interested in learning techniques, most notably bending techniques. This Scots Pine was always going to need bending in some way to make it a viable bonsai sometime in the future.

This is the tree before we started.

Ryan asked for ideas about its future, some said put it back in the ground and one said put it back in the van 🙂 Ryan said that there is always something that can be done.

After some discussion about styling options with everyone there, Ryan opted to remove two of the trunks initially and set Phil to work creating jins using hand tools and a bit of rip and tear.

The next step was how to bend such a heavy branch/trunk. Ryan demonstrated the technique of sawing into the trunk and removing a very small wedge. This was then bend down to meet again and sealed. This was done in two places on the trunk.

Phil describes what the top of the jin looks like.

The branch that was to make the new apex also needed a severe bend. Ryan removed some of the thickness by creating a shari and then running copper wire along the length of the shari before Phil applied the raffia. This allowed the branch to be bent at almost 90 degrees.

Phil gets on with wiring the remainder of the tree.

Ben lends a hand with the wiring.

Ryan’s guy line setup.

Feck’n eejits the pair of them. Apologies if you find them offensive, but you try getting a photo of them without Phil the fingers getting his way!!

The spare branch which was under consideration as an apex is now jinned.

and after Ryan places the branches as a skeleton of it’s future design.

The wire team

It fitted in the van a lot easier on the way home 🙂

and just to prove it made it home….

before and after..