Large gauge aluminum wire was then placed inside the new opening and raffia was applied. Then, large annealed copper wire was applied to the trunk, twice. This will be enough to support the major bending that was about to occur.  With the tree all wrapped and wired it's time to start bending.

In Japan, the master does the bending while the apprentice(s) tighten the guy wires. Knowing how far to bend is something that is learned with years of experience. The apprentices learn by example here.

How large was the channel?  Why the use of Al  in the channel as opposed to Cu?  About how long, after prep work, did it take to get the branch bent into submission/position?  Other than the process as a whole, is there anything that wouldn't be intuitive once you got into the actual work?

Being unfamiliar with any of the Western Junipers I don't know how flexible they are.  Nonetheless, this photo series is quite impressive.  It shows what a good eye accompanied by a good bag of tricks is able to accomplish.

Irene, this is just one way to perform a major bend.  I've seen it used on collected junipers, mostly. 

Perhaps Hans or one of our other members will detail the procedure for one of the other methods for major bending?

Victrinia,

Thanks for the comments.  Very good advice, and great to hear how others do it.  Tools for the operation were a Makita die grinder and a CMT biscuit joiner blade on, I believe, a router shank which helped keep it on track (mostly).  You're absolutely correct though, much easier to control while in contact with the tree. 

Once the channel was carved the interior was cleaned out and rounded with a round bit.

Al,

This is likely the best picture I have:



I'll check again tonight to see if there's a better one.

How is the scarring dealt with? 

On the tree, or the hands and other body parts? That seriously looks dangerous.

Chris

John,
Nice presentation. This technique is talked about in many. many books and articles, frequently with very few photographs (lots of drawings though). You have to maintain a steady hand and Boon uses a router speed control unit on his fixed speed die grinder to give greater control during wood removal (I found my router speed control unit- think of a rheostat (dimmer switch) for a die grinder at Amazon.com).

The speed control and the depth of work need to be carefully observed. you want to take out a good deal of wood, but not so much that you "crimp" the live wood when you bend it. This crimping (collapsing) of the canal is partially alleviated by the large Aluminum wire and raffia(Wayne, it fills more of the channel and is much more flexible and amenable to bending than large copper). However, I can tell you from personal experience that not controlling speed can lead to the grinder wheel walking to where you don't want it to and not maintaining uniform depth can result in pinching and killing the branch.

You can bend many branches of many species with the raffia, lengthwise wire, followed by raffia technique. I don't believe that you will bend these old junipers as well, or at least not without the fear of an occasional break. If you have a number of guy wire points and places to put fulcrum(s) you can get pretty dramatic bends in yews and pines and junipers using the technique that Hans used with Irene.

Nice pictorial, the more of these we get out there the better.
John