jinning

TreeBay

With Juniper or Pine, it takes the tree 3 to 5 years to develop enough wood to speak of, but you can practice jinning and carving with garden material. *That's usually the best way. *It will give you an idea about how to debark and create some taper or interest in an otherwise bland piece of wood. *Cut yourself a piece of garden juniper, tam juniper or something similar, and "go to town." *Dead bonsai are also fun to work on with power tools, and if you like what you develop you can develop a "phoenix" bonsai or deadwood "graft" by laying in a live whip of juniper against the dead stump.

Here's an article on the subject. *There are some tools designed to make this easier which you will find in the www.treebay.com catalog if you search on Jin. *In particular, the hook shaped blade is very useful for developing taper in a jin. *Others use a carbide tip in a die grinder or a sharp knife and some judicious carving.

If you need some inspiration, there is Ernie Kuo's photo gallery of the bristlecone pines

For some info about tools, Dave Butt's Carving deadwood

Young wood won't hold up very long under the elements. If it's at least a couple decades old and treated with lime-sulfur as a preservative, it might outlast its carver. Collected California Juniper and Wolfgang's ancient mughos have exposed deadwood features that are much older than this.

Regards,

Matt

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