hi guys
Levuccio asked the other day about seeing some of the tubestock John has been selling, and the process of what the go is, I have taken a few progression shots that will help with seeing what i have done
these process pictures have all been taken from the same "front" from the first pic all the way through. makes it a little easier to see whats happening, sorry about the couple of blurry or over exposed pics, the light was up and down today with cloud cover plus my shaky hands dont help!
process 1.jpg
first things first, for this sized whip I have used a 3mm wire, it is aluminium, i have found that this silver wire is a little easier to bend with but holds just aswell which is exactly what is needed for this. so wired up then the rest of the whip which was a little small for that sized wire has had 1mm wire used right to the tip ( not in picture the 1mm wire)
process 2.jpg
this step is the first bend, it is very important to get one as low down as possible, this will make styling a lot easier down the track as the movement will begin at the bottom and when the shari starts in 4-5 years time it will also help with the twisting of the trunk and live vein/deadwood areas.
process 3.jpg
even in the picture being 2 d, more bends have been added to go back up with the line but it also moves to the back aswell, its very important to put movement in, in all directions, left, right, front back, up, down.
process 4.jpg
even more bends and twists into the trunk, i am bending this shot back on itself then towards the front.
process 5.jpg
this has gone back to the rear then out to the right again, it is best to try and be completly random with this as we are trying to instill natural harsh conditions in the wild into a completly man made/grown tree.
process 6.jpg
more twisting, you can see the foliage is starting to get like a big mess, that wont be a problem it will sort itself out in time and natural selection of the sapling.
process 7.jpg
coming back up on itself, this is the start to an "apex" the apex will change many times over the period of growing.
process 8.jpg
this pic shows where the 1mm wire was used on two of the brancehs that had hardened off, using it to get more movement in there.
process 9.jpg
and the last couple of bends.
process complete.jpg
process complete close.jpg
these two are to try and show the line of the trunk a little closer, sorry it is a little bit hard to see a combo of bad light and shaky hands
juni in ground 2.jpg
and finally in the ground with all his other mates to be fed well and plenty of time to do what they do. the wire will be left on untill absolutly necessary to take it off, rewiring these trunks is not only frustrating but very difficult so best to over exxagerate the cirves and bends as when these thinken the bends will be a little more subtle.
hopefully this has helped those in the process to the start of these, obviously you can get the trunk thicker a little quicker by combining two, three or four whips together, braid them a little if need be but make sure the bark on there trunks is touching or very close, then reassess the thickness of wire needed to bend the thicker trunk, these will fuse over time, i would say they would be well on there way to being fused after 4-5 years.
I have one or two shimpaku left that I did exactly the same thing to as this one but they had some bigger trunks, I will get some pics tomorrow of that
hope this has been a help to anyone that reads it
this is the way I have been playing with the techniques so far.
jamie
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
so who else is in ???? 
They are now twisted and curved to their limit and it was great fun to do, no analysing where one branch should sit....just a great big tangle 
taking the top half of trees of since 2005! 
