Hi everybody,

I did some death wood work on a very old "Mugo"Pine last weekend. This tree has a lot of beautiful ancient death wood and is completely hollow. Any wood work technique i would use had to result in handmade death wood looking just as old an cracked as the original death wood, artificial looking jin or shari work would look misplaced! That's why i decided to use only hand tools, so i would have more control creating the necessary details.

Picture:1
Before the work started: in the middle you can see the stump left from cutting off that branch when it was collected years ago. And after all those years it still looks like a stump left from cutting off a branch! So i have to reshape it to blend in the overall appearance of the tree.

Picture:2
Excess wood was removed with cutters, pulling the wood off toward the base off the stump. Leaving a natural looking surface.

Picture:3
The stump was hollowed out with a chisel. Even after all those years since it was cut off, the stump was still not completely dry, witch made the work a bit more difficult

Picture:4 and 5
With the help of a chisel: wedge shaped pieces off wood were taken out and the stump was splitted open in several places.

Picture:6 (#39182)
I think it is looking much better already and I am satisfied with the result for now.

Attached Images

	juli 2006 075 hans.jpg (70.2 KB, 360 views)
	juli 2006 081 hans.jpg (66.4 KB, 220 views)
	juli 2006 086 hans.jpg (68.1 KB, 229 views)
	juli 2006 088 hans.jpg (70.1 KB, 176 views)
	juli 2006 090 hans.jpg (65.2 KB, 167 views)
	juli 2006 097 hans.jpg (68.8 KB, 316 views)

Picture:7
The wood is brushed with a hard metal brush.

Picture:8
With a small jewelry burner the death wood is carefully burned. The live part off the tree was protected with a piece off aluminium, so that it would not get to hot and suffer mayor damage to the sap flow. Because the wood was still not dry, the resin started to burst into flames. So i had to burn a Little, stop and blow out the flame. Because the soft parts off the wood burn more easily than the hard parts, the texture off the wood comes out very beautiful and old looking. Doing this burning also hardens the remaining death wood protecting it from rotting,

Picture:9
After the burning the now black dead wood was cleaned with a copper brush in the direction off the wood grain. This not only cleaned the wood, but also created more detail to the surface. After that the wood is sprayed with water, it is treated with jin seal.

Picture:10 and 11
Close ups of the newly created dead wood, that now is nicely blending in to the old dead wood.

I hope you enjoyed it,
Hans van Meer.

Attached Images

	juli 2006 285 hans.jpg (63.1 KB, 142 views)
	juli 2006 123 hans.jpg (69.3 KB, 164 views)
	juli 2006 097 hans.jpg (68.8 KB, 157 views)
	juli 2006 288 hans.jpg (67.9 KB, 167 views)
	juli 2006 294 hans.jpg (68.4 KB, 220 views)

Thanks for the picture show Hans. Nice work, it looks convincing.

Great work, Hans!

Now all we need is a picture of the entire tree...

Thanks.

Fly.

Yes, very informative. Flammable resin! this is a dangerous hobby lol

Hans,

I found it a little difficult to follow the pictures.I guess I couldn't see the big change in the deadwood.BUT!!!!!!....and it's a big but ......the fact that you posted it,makes a very important point.YOU see the differance,You see the progress.The devil is in the details.That is the differance between a good bonsai and a great bonsai.Your skill(as evidenced by prior postings) would lead me to believe that a great improvement has been made.It would be nice to see a before and after series of the whole tree(whether the tree is in perfect condition or not).....in order to more accurately portray the improvement in the deadwood.


thanks,

andy

Hi Andy,
Maybe you made a good point that in these pictures it looks like not much is changed, but believe me it did and that is just Wat is so important in this bonsai.
But have a look at this 2 pics.
Look at the first pic and notice the very straight and unnaturally looking edge off the stump, now look at the same spot on the next pic. Look at the difference in thickness and grain and texture, it doesn't look straight any more. And this was only after the chisel and brush. But i admit it looks better in real live than in the pictures.
I will post pictures of the hole tree tomorrow, even though it is in the middle of developing!
Hans.

Attached Images

	juli 2006 097 hans 2.jpg (60.9 KB, 148 views)
	juli 2006 098 hans 2.jpg (63.6 KB, 180 views)

hey man good work the subtlety's and finer details are what make a greater bigger picture. i look forward to the bigger picture.

Thanks, if you want to see the hole picture of this bonsai click on this link:
http://forum.bonsaitalk.com/showthread.php?t=19962

Or go to this link:
http://www.karamotto.org/ and go to bonsai storys and select the "Swan story".

Have fun,
Hans van Meer.

thanks hans for the link thats beautiful, what a pleasure it must be to work with such inspiring material ( and know what you are doing )