Many people who work a lot with black pine bonsai develop a special relationship with tweezers. Fall, winter, and sometimes spring and summer offer opportunities to remove copious amounts of needles from pine bonsai in later stages of development. I like tweezer work because it leaves pine foliage looking clean and even – balanced, in a word. I’ve also finished plenty of days’ work with sore fingers.
After a very brief stint with low quality tweezers, I switched to Masakuni tweezers. I like these a lot and have used them for more than 10 years. Recently, however, I began seeing folks using a different kind of tweezers. I was curious, so I picked up a pair from Boon at a BIB workshop.
I couldn’t use them at first as they needed a slight modification. By grinding the tip of the tweezers – common practice among folks who use this brand – the tweezers can enable very accurate tweezing. Pictured below are my new tweezers next to an older pair of a similar style.
New tweezers below, an older pair above
New tweezers and modified tweezers
The older pair is made by Van, the newer by Plum. I don’t know if they’re commonly available in the U.S. or not.
Plum brand tweezers
I’m happy to report that the Plum tweezers work really well. I’ll admit that I like finding excuses to try new bonsai tools, but it’s even more rewarding to discover simple enhancements to the standard tools.
After sharpening the new tweezers, I walked straight toward the pines in my garden and – noticed that I’d yet to remove this year’s pine cones. To save the trees from putting energy toward developing cones, I removed each with a twist of my fingers. I think the colors are great. Here are a number of the first, and some second-year cones I removed.
Young pine cones
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William N. Valavanis says
Jonas,
Great articles, well written and photographed. Please keep up the good work.
So you like new tools. . . . Have you seen the new tweezers that Loews has? They are yellow and black and come in both straight and curved ends. BUT the difference is that there is a small battery controlled LED light at the other end where they are connected. Works great, the light shines right into the pine needles. They are a bit less than the Masakuni brand of tweezers, $9. I found them near the area where the Dremel wood carving tools are sold on an end cap.
Bill
xwires says
Thanks Bill, I haven’t seen the Lowes tweezers – what a great price!
Bruce says
Since I’m not near Lowes I got a set from Amazon: Smooth Point Tip Serrated Blunt Tip and Serrated Bent Tip, 3-Piece Set”
Sam Ogranaja says
Jonas,
I second what Bill said. Keep up the good work. Your pictures are awesome to look at.
Bill,
Thank you for the Lowe’s tip. I’ll probably give those tweezers a shot. Any other “cheap” tool tips??? 🙂
Have a great week y’all
Sam
kuromatsu says
I’m glad to see its not only me that has been geeking out on the tweezers. Great article!
I opted for some ‘Royal’ tweezers found on Bonsai Focus magazine’s webshop http://www.bonsaifocus.com/index.php?page=products&pid=405
These work well in my opinion but I’m always open to new suggestion…Thanks!
keisen says
I love the beautiful colors of the picked cones. Makes me think of field of lavender in Provence.