Thickening trunks with a razor blade

[Vance Wood]

I have dealt with this issue for many years, through trying them, researching those who have written about them, and seeing the results, or lack of them, in many cases. It is possible to do this stuff but if you are going to do it you need to know what happens when you do. First off, you hammer deciduous, you do not slice them. Secondly you slice or penetrate the bark on Pines you do not hammer them. You do not do either one on Junipers. Junipers do not heal wounds to the bark they just grow around them. If you do anything to a Juniper it has to be a slice that must follow a growth line.

If you have a complete collection of Bonsai Today and a collection of International Bonsai (Bill's magazine) I would highly recommend searching through them for anything written about Kimura. He has used a technique of punctuering the trunk down to the cambium layer. You use a very fine awl or even a dental pick and push it into the bark until it hits something hard. Do this as many time as you can. I have done this and it does work but it does take time. Do this on Pines. I have seen hammering thicken Maples but you have to be careful. Understand that you are injuring the tree and the cambium layer beneath the bark. You are forcing it to respond to heal itself and this causes a swelling. I have one Scots Pine that I performed this method on a number of years ago. I will post the picture if I can find them. I lost the tree two years ago in the record setting winter we had.

I found the photo from 2006. The base of the trunk had an inverse taper. I used the puncture technique to resolve much of it.

 

[barrosinc]

Yes, you absolutely should do this. They do it in Japan, big secret, but some folks here are figuring it out. This tree is 6 years old, just slice away. Works like a charm.View attachment 84997

I started slicing this one last year, 2014, and by this fall, it was ready to dig up. To be fair, the photos are almost 2 growing seasons apart:
View attachment 84999 View attachment 85000






Kidding. Don't do it. It's a horrible idea and doesn't work. Grow sacrifice branches to thicken trunks.

I hadn't read the last line... and started counting nodes, looking at the bark... looked back at the pic, looked at the top one... and when I was about to go to Eric Schraders thread to double check and compare... I read the last line... You got me good on that one!

 

[fourteener]

Andy Smith talks about Ponderosas that he collects. If you see a tree with a very thick base and the trunk gets small quickly it's from nature whipping this tree around, beating, bruising and punishing the base of the tree. He goes on to say those trees aren't as old as you might think. But that means 50 years old instead of 120-250. My guess is that if you took a hammer to the base of your trunk for 40 years, you might see a change. The three year experiment won't be enough.

 

[GGB]

I had read that this technique was only for junipers and pines. Now we're down to pines I guess. My juniper showed the largest opening from the razor wound but I guess thats just because it's not going to close haha. It's Juniperus virginiana and I have a thousand more thick trunked yamadori to choose from if I need em. Vance your pine up there is exactly the reason I was looking for proof. wouldn't want to pass up an otherwise good tree if there were a correction I could make. Thanks everyone for weighing in. Still no photo's as this morning was pouring rain and overcast but I promise to get some up. But like fourteener said this must take some time to show any results anyway

 

[Smoke]

View attachment 85022 I have dealt with this issue for many years, through trying them, researching those who have written about them, and seeing the results, or lack of them, in many cases. It is possible to do this stuff but if you are going to do it you need to know what happens when you do. First off, you hammer deciduous, you do not slice them. Secondly you slice or penetrate the bark on Pines you do not hammer them. You do not do either one on Junipers. Junipers do not heal wounds to the bark they just grow around them. If you do anything to a Juniper it has to be a slice that must follow a growth line.

If you have a complete collection of Bonsai Today and a collection of International Bonsai (Bill's magazine) I would highly recommend searching through them for anything written about Kimura. He has used a technique of punctuering the trunk down to the cambium layer. You use a very fine awl or even a dental pick and push it into the bark until it hits something hard. Do this as many time as you can. I have done this and it does work but it does take time. Do this on Pines. I have seen hammering thicken Maples but you have to be careful. Understand that you are injuring the tree and the cambium layer beneath the bark. You are forcing it to respond to heal itself and this causes a swelling. I have one Scots Pine that I performed this method on a number of years ago. I will post the picture if I can find them. I lost the tree two years ago in the record setting winter we had.

I found the photo from 2006. The base of the trunk had an inverse taper. I used the puncture technique to resolve much of it.

Looks good on that table.

 

[Vance Wood]

Looks good on that table.

That's the table you made for He who Shall not be Named a number of years ago. Your tables are beautiful I wish I had a few of them.

 

[GGB]

Looks good on that table.

you made that? very cool

 

[Adair M]

you made that? very cool

You should see the shohin stands he made!

 

[M. Frary]

Smoke is very good at working wood.

 

[Smoke]

Smoke is very good at working wood.

Hehehe!

 

[sorce]

I thought that was yours!

Nice.!

I've been thinking about trying my hand at some.

Sorce

 

[Ironbeaver]

I've been thinking about trying my hand at some.

Trying your hand at "wood working?"

 

[sorce]

Trying your hand at "wood working?"

Lol. Yes!
The only problem.....

I got to use my friends tools!

This is completely serious. And fing hilarious!

Sorce

 

[GGB]

Here they are. Let me start by saying this, the cuts were made with an extremely sharp / fine hair razor and were invisible when done originally. Because I used that type of razor I was not able to follow the movement of the trunks very well. No need to critique my poor carving these trees are just experimental saplings never destined for bonsai. The mugo pine's (pencil thickness) wounds filled with sap and the norway spruce (magic marker thickness) looks like it may be doing the same. The eastern red cedar (sharpie thickness) opened up the most but as I'm told it won't heal to well. These cuts go all the way around each tree. I spared you the ancient android photo shoot

 

[GGB]

Pictures in order Norway spruce, mugo pine cutting, and eastern redcedar

 

[sorce]

??

Sorce

 

[sorce]

Fail

Sorce

 

[Adair M]

Only comment on this subject is if razor cutting or hammering really worked, the technique would be described in all the books and magazines.

It's not.

Draw your own conclusions.

 

[GGB]

Only comment on this subject is if razor cutting or hammering really worked, the technique would be described in all the books and magazines.

It's not.

Draw your own conclusions.

I agree, but I'm going to keep this experiment alive. I noticed today that my j. virginiana is noticeably thicker than this spring (it's young so that's not suprising). But! in my lazy haste to take photos I missed one of the razor cuts on the backside of the tree. It actually split open a good quater inch, it could be a horrificly ugly and painful death for the tree but my conclusion for this season is that i've gained something from razor cutting. we"ll find out if it's lethal or not soon

 

[JoeR]

Only comment on this subject is if razor cutting or hammering really worked, the technique would be described in all the books and magazines.

It's not.

Draw your own conclusions.

Not necessarily.

And it is described in some books and articles. The only bonsai book I have describes hammering. Vance mentioned some notable magazines.

For one thing, if it does work, I feel like it is something that's nearly impossible to prove due to the fact that you don't know what it would look like if we didn't do it vs. after it was done. Who's to say it wasn't going to thicken anyway etc.