3D printed Bonsai Fusion Support ?

[Gabler]

What have you done on your own trees ? Did you scion graft Shimpaku itoigawa on native juniper stock? Or used graft techniques to enhance your tree ?

No. I just said I prefer to avoid it, except maybe a self-graft to add the odd branch, but that's not what I'm talking about, anyway.

 

[rockm]

It's not reasoning. It's an attempt to explain a visceral negative reaction to chopping off a tree's foliage and replacing it with something different.

I don't really have a problem with it, unless it's something that doesn't make any sense, as in replacing something like a collected utah juniper foliage with shimpaku foliage, a completely different species. That compromises why the Utah juniper was collected in the first place.

I don't think replacing juniper chinensis foliage with a different variety of chinensis foliage that simply grows more tightly is that much of a jump, but some do...

 

[pandacular]

That compromises why the Utah juniper was collected in the first place.

I would say one of the main reasons American junipers are collected is because there are no longer any junipers to collect in Japan (not to mention the import restrictions.)

 

[shohin_branches]

I've never seen a fusion project that produced either better or faster results than the classic grow and chop method for producing tapered trunks.

I'd love to be proven wrong if someone can show us a successful fusion.

This is a Chinese elm that was multiple small elms wrapped around a stack of rocks that were wrapped in raffia. When the tree was imported around 1991 the front hole was fully covered by live bark but as the tree aged and this part rotted and the stacks of rocks were found. This isn't my tree it's in the Milwaukee Bonsai Foundation collection.

I know a woman who makes very cool trees out of slightly different cultivars fused together. I believe this is Korean and American hornbeam but I can't quite remember. I wouldn't compare fusion trees to fast ground-grown trees because they're not going to produce the same result. The tree will have a much more interesting trunk with fusion and it still maintains that compaction of slow growing. Growing something out quickly in the ground blows out and softens the movement the tree had.

 

[shohin_branches]

You could get it by planting the tree in the ground and letting it grow for ten years, successively chopping over the next ten years to develop taper, and developing the branches and apex over the final ten years.

A disclaimer: I can't say that from personal experience. I haven't even been alive for thirty years myself, let alone growing bonsai for thirty years.

You would not get anywhere near the same tree because that twist wouldn't be there. That movement wouldn't exists

 

[Gabler]

You would not get anywhere near the same tree because that twist wouldn't be there. That movement wouldn't exists

Fair enough. If you want a striated tree, fusion will produce that result.

 

[onlyrey]

I bit the bullet and designed a bonsai pot. 3D Printing may not be the most efficient method of manufacturing bonsai pots. The print is 10x10 cm base and 8cm high (not counting the legs) and took about 6 hours and 150g of filament which at cost is about $5. Print farms however are now changing the economics of 3D printing. The tree is from an "emergency repotting" I ABSOLUTELY HAD to do to save this tree . I plan to have it indoors and water it every 2 hours, except for weekends when it will be out by the pool and get water from the splashing (the two sentences before are sarcastic just in case a newbie gets here). It can be printed without the need for supports and has drainage "meshes" and fancy tunneling through the legs for the guiding wires. If you want to give it a try, the file is available in printables - open sourced) in this link. Any comments I'll try to incorporate into the next version of it. Right now I put this "Aralia Fabian Stump" from Publix (about $16) and will see how it goes long term. The material I used in this case is PETG, which is similar to the plastic in soda bottles (PET). PETG is supposed to do well outdoors as opposed to PLA which is the most commonly 3D printer filament used.

 

[rockm]

Recent photo stolen from Bjorn's recent Eisei en Facebook feed. Pic is of one of Doug Phillip's original fusion tridents constructed 40 years ago.

 

[Scrogdor]

Recent photo stolen from Bjorn's recent Eisei en Facebook feed. Pic is of one of Doug Phillip's original fusion tridents constructed 40 years ago.

These look pretty cool. Maybe not the same type of taper as a single trunk. But definitely cool