Hey there all bonsai friends

I have a wild olive at home with a potential jin. I don't own any jin tools, so I want to know how I can jin without the tools. I have never attempted a jin, so I have no idea how to approach this. It is currently winter here so I would like to brush up on the jin thing.

When is the best time to perform this? Any advice will be helpful or even if you can send me to a link.

Thank you very much
Hein

Olive trees are great jin potentials; I would probably do this in summertime (not in spring when the tree just starts to grow for example). Anyone else?

Thanks Oscar

Any tips on doing a jin without the jin tools.

The tools using for jin is to remove the bark easily by pushing the branch in so that the bark releases the rest of the branch. This is easy to do in spring or summer because the juice of the tree flows through the branch. Also a tool is easy for stripping some of the wood to make it looks more natural.

I think you can also do this with other tools, but I don't know that for sure. If you want to be hundred percent sure I would just buy the tools you need to make a jin.

Thank you for all the info. I appreciate it, but I don't think i made myself clear.

I know how make a jin and what tools to use. My problem is as follows:

When I take the bark of I am left with the exposed wood. What I want to know is how do I start to form the jin. I have seen some beautifull natural looking jins. The length of the part I want to jin is about 10cm long and the width is 2 cm. I want to make it look very natural.

howdy Hein,
pics would help if its possible.from what ive seen the jin is not going to look old right away, another thing is to look in nature to see how the branch would look and try to replicate it. i dont have any trees with jin on them yet so any other advise wouldbe guessing

From what I read you shouldn't jin an olive because the wood cracks easily and the wood decays very quickly.

Hello Hein,

Have you read any of the information provided here on the Bonsai Empire site? There is a wealth of it available. See the Main Menu on the upper left corner of your page?...click on Train then click on Deadwood ~ this will discuss Jin and Shari...it tells you what you need to do. Also check out the site's Articles and Advanced techniques. Hope this helps!

Leslie

Well, I don't have any experience with olive trees, but I don't own any jinning tools either. I used just a regular swiss army knife on my willow wood and it came out fine. Just go WITH the grain of the wood, or it'll be impossible. The rounded tip is particularly helpful if you want some sort of concavity, or the whole length of the blade itself can be used as a chisel if you want a large portion of the wood cracked off. Just be careful... right now I have a missing knife tip and a cut thumb as trophies for finishing my willow branch for a phoenix graft! Injuries and other damage is likely if not inevitable, but if you're careful you can keep these to a minimum. (Also make sure your blade is good and sharp. If it's not, and you don't have a grindstone, you can use the top of a crystal water glass.) Good luck!

You can actually sharpen a knife blade on the rim of a crystal glass??? :ohmy: Wow...I've never heard of that! If you don't mind my asking, Hannah where/who did you learn that from? That's so cool!

Leslie