Concept sketch for display stand

[mfres6]

Hi all,

I have attached a Google Sketchup drawing that I have drawn up for a stand I am going to build. I am planning to put a lazy Susan bearing in between the top of each post and the platforms. Thus allowing me to turn each individual tree around for styling, weeding, viewing etc. The stand will be made mostly out of 68mm x 68mm hardwood. I will take some photos of the construction along the way, as well as some photos upon completion.

Cheers, Matt

[Steven]

G'day Matt,

Nice use of Sketchup.
You might like to consider removing 1 and offsetting the front poles so that the trees don't block the ones behind.
Looking forward to seeing the finished result.

Regards,
Steven

[Mitchell]

Looks great mate, the only constructive criticism I could make would be not to have the front and rear poles inline, the front tree will block and ruin the back tree, unless of coarse you are only planning on smaller trees in the front. Even so I believe they would work better staggered, as to not disrupt the viewing of another.
With your current layout, 2 in the front could work, or why not splash out and go four at the back and three in between at the front.

Check out the heavy duty steel lazy susan bearing at Buzzings for $20, great for trees over 20kg.

Can't wait to see it finished.


Edit- or what Steven said... Great minds eh...

[mfres6]

Thanks for your ideas and opinions guys!! I have attached an alternative design. What do you think?

Cheers, Matt

[Greth]

The staggered design is better than the inline one, definite improvement.
Are you gonna place anything to cover the long bare legs? It all looks a bit bare from the sketch, but reality might be quite different from what I see now.

[mfres6]

I guess I was hoping that the bonsai's would be the feature and the stand would just blend in with what ever is behind it. I might make up a scale model first to get a better idea. Thanks for your thoughts.

[Greth]

Some people like bare and simple looks, I would rather cover those bare legs with some small shubby thing. This is just what I think, and what I would do. It isn't the only way to go, Otherwise I love your stand idea. Japanese style is often more sparse that my preferred, I am a more crowded cottage garden look. You wanted input, and I gave my idea.

[mfres6]

This is where I got the inspiration from. This is a picture in a book called Growing Bonsai- A Practical Encyclopidia by Ken Norman. I liked the look of the centre "posts" in the picture and adapted the idea from there.

[Greth]

Would they look better with a couple of low conifers covering the lower legs? or would that look too crowded for a Japanese look? I dunno. You decide what you actually want in your house, I just gave some alternatives.

[molty75]

nice stand mate,

one thing that i would suggest is you may want to think about some brasing to prevent the wobble factor, what you have seen in the inspiration pic is that the posts have actually been cemented in to the ground, once you put your tree on top the weight will create a top heavy situation that will cause wobble wobble.
i have created alot of bonsai benches stands and other creations for people as it is part of my business, please keep this in mind it would be a shame to find your trees on the floor in the morning.
cheers

[Greeny]

I agree with Molty regarding the bracing but the lay out looks good specially the revised layout and I think the clean post look adds to the feature which is the Bonsai, I believe a random height for each post would look better though would not look staged.

[litoalansalon]

Great idea.