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  1. lieuz

    Zelkova Broom in the Making

    I bought it as a small whip that had a fairly even branch on either side fairly low on the trunkline. I chopped it down to that branch split and just let it grow in that container for a few years (2020).
  2. lieuz

    Zelkova Broom in the Making

    I have an update. You're definitely right about girdling and burying. I felt I wasted time looking back now; however, the results are interesting. Girdling first then air layering proved the bulge will flatten out on my case. I wonder if it girdled and ground layer, would it have done the same...
  3. lieuz

    American Hornbeam Forest

    I've had this american horbeam forest for about 9 years and it was put together with some fairly young trees at the time. This is probably my third forest but this one is deciduous, my other two are conifers. It's definitely come a long way and had 2 restyling by moving some trunks around. I...
  4. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    I was able to fill in the very obvious voids and also had the time to apply the finishing as well. The pot is now ready for refinement polishing to make the surface very smooth to receive the gold powder. Will likely have to go through 2-3 cycles to get this to look flush. But so far so good...
  5. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    Not bonsai related but this is one of my more labor intensive repairs. Lots of missing bits and pieces on this yixing zisha tea pot. It get's renewed life. Quite proud of this one. It's for my sister's boyfriend. This teapot used to belong to his dad and he's no longer with us. This is a nice...
  6. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    One nice thing about broken pots are, that at raffles, they don't get picked. But I pick them. This chipped pot was repaired with silver. A much larger chip which requires a natural composite of flour, clay, wood dust, and lacquer creates a material that is very dense, very hard and very strong...
  7. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    While I wait for the pot to cure, I figured I'd post some pictures of some other repaired work I've completed. Here is a repaired Sara Rayner piece that had a small chip in it. The gold is very matches the clay very nicely. Chips are my all time preferred repairs because they're fully...
  8. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    Having cured a bit more, I applied some sabi urushi to fill in large substantial areas around the foot. The results are good, but still need another round of filler material, although less next go round. Note the more polished and refined missing leg. Very pleased with this work. Will require...
  9. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    After a few days in the humidity chamber (muro) with the feet more firm, I was able to whittle away material. Here's the after of the whittling away. I was also able to do a light sanding and it exposed the copper reinforcement below. I'm pretty pleased with the results. I'll let...
  10. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    After a few more days, the pot had some more time to cure. It's time to make the missing foot. Using that recipe stated before, that'll be the composite used to shape the rough structure. Also needed ins some reinforcement, so I added two pieces of copper wire into the core to support the...
  11. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    The best way I can explain that would be relative is if you sifted your bonsai soil and the ultra-fine stuff is similar in consistency. I grabbed this picture from BONSAI TONIGHT, the dust that you see would be a similar consistency and even that I'd but that through a silk stocking and sift if...
  12. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    In preparation for sculpting a foot for this pot, I wanted to share the recipe for the composite called kokuso (刻苧) or sometimes as (木屎). Between the two kanji, one being "chopped fibrous plant fiber" and the other literally meaning "wood poop" this stuff is meant to be a filling material that...
  13. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    This hardened up pretty well after a few days. I scraped and sanded down so it matched the surrounding profile. Came out nice, I'll do another sanding after another few days. There is a slight, very very slight, discrepancy that will be fixed with filler material and more sanding. Slight...
  14. lieuz

    Kate M's American Hornbeam

    Damn, I wish I found cool stuff in my backwoods. This is a great start! I really love American hornbeams and their very sensual-looking trunks.
  15. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    The last pot where a substantial amount of loss is addressed in this go-round. This Roy Minerai pot has a lot of the rim missing, so I added back material so I can sand it down later. Here's the after when the composite of flour, clay, wood fines and lacquer was added to patch these areas...
  16. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    The Nick Lenz pot is now fully back together with all the hot glue dots removed. The piece still has quite a substantial loss that needs to be addressed. After scraping off the excess material, I needed to address the substantial loss before filling in the joinery. A partial foot is missing, so...
  17. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    I Filled in the antique Chinese pot with clay/lacquer mix. I let it cure for about a week before coming through and scraping the excess off. This was quite exciting because I can now test my polishing skills on super fine lines. Note this large hole that's filled now with the lacquer mix...
  18. lieuz

    Tell me why native silver maple sucks?

    You right you right.
  19. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    It's such a bad comparison compared to my attempt; however, this is what I'm trying to mimic. I'm not sure how this person got such clean lines, but I think it's this piece might be really small and the lines are quite fine. The brush I have is fairly thick in comparison. My design is also a...
  20. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    After letting the silver cure for a few days, I added the lattice design on top of the silver and gilded it with gold. The thing I learned about doing this is that the silver might have still not been fully cured as I would have thought, it still picked up a bit of the gold dust making the...
  21. lieuz

    Tell me why native silver maple sucks?

    I have one of those. I've heard the same things and although mine is an acer rubrum, 22 years later, the then 1 year old acer rubrum sapling I pulled out of the ground from a friend's house is still alive. However, the one thing that kept me from taking it forward and developing it was mainly...
  22. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    Here's a quick example of what I mean. Note how the sanding and filling got rid of a lot of the bigger defects. Now I'm left with smaller holes to fill with liquid lacquer. I'll sand this down again and reapply the polishing lacquer.
  23. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    I'm usually not as interested in my bonsai club's raffles but I'm more drawn to them now because it can be a great opportunity to pick up broken pieces. The club members would get some time to look around to see the pieces they want to pick up. I get a chance to look around to see if there are...
  24. lieuz

    Kintsugi Pot Repair

    There are four challenging types of ceramics when it comes to kintsugi: - Weirdly shaped items - Because sometimes there are insanely tight areas where the finger or tools can't reach. - Unglazed - Because unglazed surfaces can be marred by stains from the lacquer. - When sanding, you can sand...
  25. lieuz

    Thoughts on "Nursery to Bonsai" in one sitting

    As others have stated before, it's dependent on the species. Tropicals can take a serious beating and they bounce right back. Conifers are another that would fit more along the lines of fairly instant-able bonsai. I think it's important to note that these trees are probably extremely healthy and...
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