Chopstick vs Root hook for repotting

[geargarcon]

Thanks everyone. The last several comments have been extremely informative and helpful to further developing my understanding.

 

[a0kalittlema0n]

Yeah, like I said, Mirai tends to be precious.

If you have three hours to devote to shifting between the "soft" and "hard" side of a chopstick when you're repotting, you probably don't have a real job...or kids, or a dog...This is great, but if you've been doing this a while, you already know not to rip and pull with any instrument you're using.

Mirai tends to have a reason to be "precious" as you put it, whether right or wrong, I'm just explaining why they do it the way they do it.

You don't shift between the hard and soft sides of the chopstick, the outside of the bamboo is hard which is what holds the edge, and the inside of the bamboo is softer and is prone to wearing away.

Agree though, don't rip or pull with anything is a great rule to live by haha

 

[rockm]

Mirai tends to have a reason to be "precious" as you put it, whether right or wrong, I'm just explaining why they do it the way they do it.

You don't shift between the hard and soft sides of the chopstick, the outside of the bamboo is hard which is what holds the edge, and the inside of the bamboo is softer and is prone to wearing away.

Agree though, don't rip or pull with anything is a great rule to live by haha

Whatever dude...I mean that jokingly. I'm going to sound like an blowhard old fart, effer, duffer (choose one or multiple), but I have been doing bonsai for almost as long as Ryan's been alive. My trees are hardly national prize winners, but they're not shitty. I've been working roots on most of them for going on 30 years. I only use a chopstick or a wooden dowel when I'm filling in bonsai soil at repotting. I mostly use a single tined metal root hook at repotting. Now, with satsukis you kind of have to use a chopstick because their root crowns are very thinned skinned and hard material, like metal, can score them or remove bark...I only have two satsukis...

 

[namnhi]

Are we having a discussion about inside and outside of a bamboo chopstick? Oh boy! Am I missing something? Outside is harder than inside of part of a bamboo on the same chopstick? Speechless!

 

[yashu]

Yeah, like I said, Mirai tends to be precious.

If you have three hours to devote to shifting between the "soft" and "hard" side of a chopstick when you're repotting, you probably don't have a real job...or kids, or a dog...This is great, but if you've been doing this a while, you already know not to rip and pull with any instrument you're using.

I’m sure it helps when you have a plethora of free labor… or rather labor that’s paying you to be there.

 

[Srt8madness]

Are we having a discussion about inside and outside of a bamboo chopstick? Oh boy! Am I missing something? Outside is harder than inside of part of a bamboo on the same chopstick? Speechless!

Yeah, I'm a bit WTF with this one. Slicing bamboo? Does he sharpen to an edge? lol.
Part of bonsai should be the relaxation of working on the tree, and spending all day coddling a root doesn't sound relaxing. YMMV

 

[Cajunrider]

Are we having a discussion about inside and outside of a bamboo chopstick? Oh boy! Am I missing something? Outside is harder than inside of part of a bamboo on the same chopstick? Speechless!

Outside or inside doesn't matter. My cleaver will chop them all. Yesterday I was chopping roots on the Ilex crenata trees like they were BBQ ribs.
PS: I currently do not have a root hook. My previous root hook was a cheap screwdriver bent to 90 degree and sharpened on the grinder to a dull point. Lost that in the storm. Now I use chopstick. I may make a fancy once in my workshop some day.