Home made Branch/Trunk Benders (Jacks)?

onlyrey

Does anybody know of a "recipe" to make your own branch or trunk bender jacks?

The cheapest jacks I could find are around $11 for small and medium (around 2" spread), and $13 for large jacks (around 3"+ spread). This is what I am talking about:



I have a boxwood that I am trying to style as a live oak, and I can see quite a few of these things on it, but I rather spend my tool money on some nice concave cutters.

Any ideas?

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onlyrey
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bisjoe

If you look at your picture all the parts are readily available at the hardware store. You can use regular eye-screws and buy tool dipping solution for the rubber coating. For the center screw use threaded brass rod, cut to length and drill a hole for the brass rod turning handle, For the bottom end of the
center screw you might be able to use a wing nut like the ones on the top, again dipped. If that's still too hard on the tree you might need to put a hunk of rubber between it and the trunk. I bet it still adds up to at least $10-15 though.

darrellw

Has anyone really been happy with these type of benders? I've tried few, and they always bend before the branch does!

-Darrell

rockm

Branch bender on a boxwood? Be VERY careful. If the branch doesn't snap, the arms on the bender could damage the cambium. Box has very thin skin.

hackberry

Box: What are you trying to say?!!

rockm

I'm not trying to say anything. I'm saying that boxwood has a very thin skin--thin cambium--covered by mostly thin bark. Manhandling branches with extreme treatments like branch benders can easily damage that thin skin.

watzone69

I have seen Behr (Grampz) use a cool homemade branch bender/lever made from an old "Club", you know, the anti-theft device you could put on your car steering wheel. It worked really well!

In fact, it was a boxwood I saw him using it on. No scarring at all.

Mike

onlyrey

Mike, RockM, Yes and Yes.

Bought a few branch benders, because for $11 to 13 they are not that bad priced, took one of them and tried it on a boxwood, and peeled the skin off at the middle potion because the turning (torque) motion peels the skin off.

The reason I am interested in these benders is because I want to follow Grampz steps in making a japanese boxwood into a life oak style. Maybe he has some secret to avoiding the skin peeling off, or some way around the problem.

The anti-theft "club" idea might be a good one, I have seen some at a dollar tree store I believe.

Thanks

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grampz

As Mr. Mark stated, branch/trunk benders are NOT for boxwoods...Simply stated you can't possibly place enough padding on the branch to still have effective leverage with these devices and not ruin the bark and cambium on a boxwood...I believe I pretty thoroughly covered my methods in another thread here Grampz Japanese Boxwood clump creation, particularly post #4...I have been through many 'trial and error' successes and disasters trying to achieve an effective method of bending large branches on the Japanese and Korean boxwoods, and this is the manner I have received the best results with...I have given programs to clubs on this method, and others have used it with success...If anyone has questions that are not answered in the thread I will be most happy to attempt to answer them...

The last time I gave a program on this was at the Austin Texas club and one of the members took some great photos of the work in progress...Perhaps it would be good to add a few of those to the thread on my method...

Regards
Behr

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