Now I know that I wrote before about using 5mm thick household sisal rope instead of raffia or burlap to protect the branch that you want to bend from breaking! Well, they say: the proof is in the pudding! So here we go: I had to wire a mature thumb-thick branch on my old White Pine (Pinus parviflora) from China and then bend it a lot! So I had to protect it from cracking, but I was oud off Raffia?! But I did find half a ball of sisal rope more than enough to protect that branch with two tightly wind layers of sisal on top of each other. Then this now with sisal protected right branch was wired with 4 mm aluminium wire and then slowly bent pretty severely to become almost a back branch! All without any trouble whatsoever! So my advice: always have some sisal 5 mm rope around as a backup!
Cheers and stay safe everybody,
Hans.
P.S.: Below is a link to the YouTube channel of “Love Bonsai” where I for the first time saw a lovely and strong Chinees female Bonsai artist protect the thickest of branches with sisal rope and then wire them with aluminium wire! And boy did she bend them and never brake one!!! Go have a look!!!👍👍👍
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkCqvi9lTv3_yVE4ctvDYPA/videos
The Bonsai Blog of Hans van Meer 