Did you design your own tools ?

jbhayman

Has anyone out there used their imagination and come up with their own backyard bonsai tools that are to die for ? i.e making your own soil rakes or grafting tools...etc it can be anything...

Let me know...and can you provide aphoto or a detailed description

Jbhayman

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soonami

You make a repotting root rake by bending a screwdriver in a vise. Various pieces of old silverware can be used for soil, like spoons as little shovels, and forks for rakes. Clean razor blades or craft knives can be substituted for a grafting knife. They sell pliers and wire cutters in the hardward store that can be okay for bonsai use. The only thing that is absolutely necessary is a concave cutter. Whereas you can substituted for a lot of tools, there is no satisfactory replacement for a CC

kcpoole

I have been thinking about building a tree collecting spade.

I was inspired by a Tree removal machine that was posted about 2 months ago.

Get an old shovel and replace the handle with a steel shaft 18inches or so long, topped with a heavy plate or knob of steel.

In use you would use a sledge hammer to drive the shovel into the soil around a tree without have to dig around the roots or disturb them at all.
This would sever any long roots that need cutting, but retain the soil around the tree base as an intact mass, and hopefully not damaging any feeder roots contained therein.

The shovel could be driven under the root mass cleanly, to allow the complete trunk and roots to be lifted without damage as a "Coup de Grace".

If time is plentiful, you could visit the year before and cut some of the longer roots to promote feeder root growth close to the trunk, then come back later to collect.

The device could be carried to a remote site if needed, unlike the machine which prompted this tought originally, and could even be used in restricted spaces.

All I need now is an old shovel to modify. and a tree to collect

Ken

__________________
When engineers work out how to make something Idiot proof, humanity invents a better Idiot

jbhayman

I am sing a huge heavy crow bar Aproxx...1.7m tall at the moment to do a similar job but that sounds like a good idea.

Jbhayman

rockm

"Get an old shovel and replace the handle with a steel shaft 18inches or so long, topped with a heavy plate or knob of steel."

Or you can just go get an iron landscaping prybar. I've got one that's five feet tall with a knob at one and and a flat blade on the other end. I've used it to remove big landscape trees and smaller ones. It weighs about 30 lbs or so and will drive through huge roots like an ax.