Mac In Oak Ridge
Shohin
Been afraid to do much of anything with my trees because of the heat. Right now the heat index in my yard is 105.4°.
This morning I had to do something. I have been thinking about making a simple tool to enhance jin on my trees. So I took 5 min. and made one. I figure that messing with dead limbs won't upset the trees too much.
This is just a broken piece of hacksaw blade with some electrical tape for a handle. Hacksaw blades come in different tooth per inch grades, this one is 32 tpi I think. It was used and the numbers are gone. I figure the finer the teeth the smaller the limb to use it on to enhance the jin.
If you make one, just take a pair of pliers and snap off 4" or so of the blade. Snap it off on an angle, that allows you to stick it in tight areas and still make it work. Note that I lightly passed the working teeth across a grinding stone to sharpen them a little. I did that to both sides and that is why the teeth have a shine to them. That could be done on a whet stone just as well or with a new blade the teeth would be fairly sharp anyway. One could make 3-4 or more of these tools of different tooth counts for different size limbs, larger the limb the courser the teeth to use. A 12" hacksaw blade could make three of these.
I do a lot of fine woodworking and this is inspired by what fine furniture makers call a scratch stock. This is just a variation on that theme.
On to the tree. The tree, a Virginia Pine was found as a Yamadori this past spring. Actually I spotted it last summer and went back and harvested it in late February, the buds were starting to swell on it.
I am very adept at killing pines but this one seems to be happy in it's new home. It is about 16" left to right and 12" tall. It had a natural windswept form when harvested I have just enhanced it a bit with guy wires and conventional wiring. It has just undergone shoot pruning, a week ago, and seems to be doing just fine. The stick on the right is a normal bamboo chop stick if you like size references. The larger vertical stick is a piece of bamboo that is holding a limb in position till it sets.
I have included pictures of a couple of limbs on it that have just been worked with the jin enhancing tool. I am sorry that the close ups have a little fuzzy to them, my camera is not cooperating with focus today.
Using the tool leaves a tiny amount of wood fiber fuzzes on the limbs but a quick touch with a flame would burn them off. It's just too dang hot today to be getting out a torch.
To use the tool you just apply the teeth to the area that is being jinned and scrape along the limb with a spiral movement of the teeth in relation to the limb direction. You can go back over an area to deepen the effect and the teeth will, on their own, drop right back into the grooves they made previously. Support the branch with your other hand so you can get a good scraping effect with the teeth of the tool. Just work around the branch using the same motion and direction, in a couple of minutes you can create wild grain right down to the very smallest of branches. The larger branch in the photos is about the diameter of a pencil at the base and tapers slightly towards the end where the forks are. It is about 4" long It took all of two minutes to apply the effect to this branch.
Comments and questions are welcome.
This morning I had to do something. I have been thinking about making a simple tool to enhance jin on my trees. So I took 5 min. and made one. I figure that messing with dead limbs won't upset the trees too much.
This is just a broken piece of hacksaw blade with some electrical tape for a handle. Hacksaw blades come in different tooth per inch grades, this one is 32 tpi I think. It was used and the numbers are gone. I figure the finer the teeth the smaller the limb to use it on to enhance the jin.
If you make one, just take a pair of pliers and snap off 4" or so of the blade. Snap it off on an angle, that allows you to stick it in tight areas and still make it work. Note that I lightly passed the working teeth across a grinding stone to sharpen them a little. I did that to both sides and that is why the teeth have a shine to them. That could be done on a whet stone just as well or with a new blade the teeth would be fairly sharp anyway. One could make 3-4 or more of these tools of different tooth counts for different size limbs, larger the limb the courser the teeth to use. A 12" hacksaw blade could make three of these.
I do a lot of fine woodworking and this is inspired by what fine furniture makers call a scratch stock. This is just a variation on that theme.
On to the tree. The tree, a Virginia Pine was found as a Yamadori this past spring. Actually I spotted it last summer and went back and harvested it in late February, the buds were starting to swell on it.
I am very adept at killing pines but this one seems to be happy in it's new home. It is about 16" left to right and 12" tall. It had a natural windswept form when harvested I have just enhanced it a bit with guy wires and conventional wiring. It has just undergone shoot pruning, a week ago, and seems to be doing just fine. The stick on the right is a normal bamboo chop stick if you like size references. The larger vertical stick is a piece of bamboo that is holding a limb in position till it sets.
I have included pictures of a couple of limbs on it that have just been worked with the jin enhancing tool. I am sorry that the close ups have a little fuzzy to them, my camera is not cooperating with focus today.
Using the tool leaves a tiny amount of wood fiber fuzzes on the limbs but a quick touch with a flame would burn them off. It's just too dang hot today to be getting out a torch.
To use the tool you just apply the teeth to the area that is being jinned and scrape along the limb with a spiral movement of the teeth in relation to the limb direction. You can go back over an area to deepen the effect and the teeth will, on their own, drop right back into the grooves they made previously. Support the branch with your other hand so you can get a good scraping effect with the teeth of the tool. Just work around the branch using the same motion and direction, in a couple of minutes you can create wild grain right down to the very smallest of branches. The larger branch in the photos is about the diameter of a pencil at the base and tapers slightly towards the end where the forks are. It is about 4" long It took all of two minutes to apply the effect to this branch.
Comments and questions are welcome.
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