wood hardener
First of all, thanks for the info earlier in this thread on getting a copy of the greensheets.
There is another wood hardner you can use that in my experience is far superior to what has been mentioned. It is called paraloid b72. It is an acrylic used by museums and other preservationist's on old wood and paper artifacts. (there are slightly different formulas for ceramic, metal, etc). You can go to bonsaibasho.com and click on advanced techniques. there is a 2 part article on their experiments with wood hardners on old , punky wood that they examine after using all the usual suspects including the paraloid. By far, the paraloid was the most natural and penetrated the deepest with the least "sheen" on the surface.
In Europe the paraloid is available in little plastic beads or in a liquid solution. a thick solution is used as an excellent glue for broken gin's ,etc.
Here in the US, you can google paraloid b72, and a bunch of suppliers will pop up. I got mine from an outfit in New York (talasonline.com). they sell all kinds of book preservation stuff and tools. It comes in these little beads like big grains of rice. You add paint thinner, either, or acetone to melt it.
There is a learning curve when you first use the stuff, so practice on a rotten piece of old wood before you apply it to your bonsai.
At the risk of boring everyone to death with such a long thread, I will give my experience with it to help anyone else.
First of all, I painted the stuff on a live branch and leaves to check toxicity, it did not kill the branch or hurt the tree at all!
I used acetone in an aluminum cup I made from a soda can. I added acetone to paraloid in a 20 to 1 solution (20 parts acetone, 1 part paraloid) used a chop stick and stired till it melted. if it got thicker than milk, I added more acetone. This part takes a while and is the only disadvantage I saw to this stuff (By the way, for the amount of product you get, it's about 10 times cheaper than minwax). if the air temp is on the cool side, it takes alot longer to liquify. If you use warmed up solution, little air bubbles form in the solution that will stay on the surface of your wood, spoiling the whole effect. Just keep mixing at room temp till it's disolved. When its a milk consistancy, paint it on your deadwood. Keep adding it on untill the wood will no longer absorb it anymore. The acetone penetrates very well and takes little bits of the acrylic with it untill the wood is effectively now made out of plastic.
Let it dry. If you did it rite, it will not have any sheen to it. If there is a slight shinyness, I just dip a toothbrush in acetone and lightly brush the surface.
Make sure you have the wood carved and the color you want before adding the paraloid, as it will be hard to change it after, so first carve and use lyme sulpher with or without ink to get it the way you want.
Read the article on basho for more info. Sorry for the long blab!
