Page 41 - BSAM 2018 Q1

Creating a RootWood Stand
Who among us has not admired ornate stands for bonsai? Have you noticed the ones that look like they are supported by roots instead of legs?
Text and Photos by Lindsay Bebb, Australia
I have been playing around carving bases for many of my viewing stones and decided to have a go at making a root wood stand. I started with a small, relatively so Australian timber called Conkerberry (Carissa lanceolata). at went OK, so I made another larger one from Gidgee (Acacia cambagei), which is a rock-hard timber. at also went OK, so onto to a third one, the subject of this article.
You can see the rst two stands in Photo 1 below.
e Conkerberry stand is 9.5 cm high, the Gidgee one is 15 cm high, so now this one will be 30 cm high.
The timber I selected for this project is Queensland Red Gum (Eucalyptus tereticornis), a very hard eucalyptus variety with very nice rich, reddish color but not normally considered for carving. It is
mostly for industrial uses.
A few years ago we decided to change our power to the house from
overhead to underground and that le us with several power poles to cut down. One of them was from a tree about 60 years old when rst felled. It has been a power pole on the property for around 40 years. Now
I am recycling it into other stu , including this root wood stand. January/February/March 2018 | BCI | 39