MelaQuin wrote:Tridents have softwood which rots easily. Get finer Dremel bits and score lines down the deadwood to mimic the pull-apart grain of dry wood. Don't go too deep or do too much detail. The detail you can achieve with olives and elms is definitely off the cards in softer wood. Keep in mind that maples grow in moist conditions and deadwood would rot far more quickly and you would never see a maple in the ground with a lot of deadwood. I would suggest carving out the areas so the carving is below the live wood surrounding the wound. As the live wood rolls over it gives a great effect of age and trials. But your deadwood must be below the roll area so you are not getting a raised callous - you are after a level one.
Once you carve you should leave the tree for a couple of months so any wounds are healed and then treat it with some product like 'Earls Wood Hardener' and then lime sulphur.
If you search for a couple of posts I did at the beginning of the year there is detailed info on carving plus the Dremel bits I find great. If you have any problems or can't find the article let me know.
I am just about carved out after doing an olive stump, an ash and a grey myrtle. But what fun. I will be posting the ash and the grey myrtle in the market place so you can look at those pics and get an idea. Keep in mind the grey myrtle is commonly called 'Ironwood' and the ash is fairly hard. With maples I would texture the deadwood to make it look natural but I would keep the work simple and shallow.
Last point... however you carve you must ensure that you have not created any pools where water can collect to aid rotting. Always create runoff paths, even in hardwoods.
thanks mel! i always appreciate your input, you always go into detail which really helps! if i can pick your brain a little bit more (as if i havent done that enough
) what do you think of a hollow trunk on the first tree? or am i getting to excited with this idea?
Asus101 wrote:Shouldnt need to use lime sulfur, but still darken the wood a great deal.
Like Mela stated, soft wood rots easy, so when doing dead work keep it in mind. Try to carve the wood as you would see a rotting section of timber to look like.
There are very very few deciduous tree's that wont rot out, prunus mume being one of those few. There is a good article on a bonsai UK edition that I will hunt out. The artist used a hawthorn as its its not suited to the normal jin and shari work seen on junipers and pines (Junipers over 100 years being able to take extensive jin shari work, and pines suited more to shari than jins given most have softer wood. Kimura has made comments on this a number of times).
thanks for the tip with trying to create it to look like rotting wood, and i appreciate all the input people!
regards jamie
taking the top half of trees of since 2005! 
