I'm going to try to put a couple bottle
trees together today just to show you
get it on film and show you but before I
do that I want to explain to you how I
come up with this uh method or uh the uh
the system I use to uh make these bottle
trees like I say I had no art training
or anything like that and I know it's
just a tree you think well you know just
start welding stuff together and you're
going to get it but I didn't really want
a tree
just a straight Bottle Tree I didn't
want it just to have a Bottle Tree that
was just a stick with sticks coming off
the side I wanted yeah I'm not bashing
anybody's stuff I'm just that's what I
wanted to do I wanted to be able to make
a Bottle Tree that you can put bottles
on it
or if you wanted to just stick it in a
garden
without putting anything on it you could
and it would kind of look like a little
you know steel rebar ornamental little
tree and the branches would have a you
know little bends on the branches to
kind of make it look a little bit more
realistic but I started thinking okay
how okay what am I going to do if I make
a 60-in
tree uh what's it going to be is it are
you going to make branches 20 how how
big do you make the branches how far do
you space them that sounds simple just
walk outside and look at a tree but you
know I thought well there's got to be
something so I was looking around you
know just kind of searching around and
looking for like basic design or
proportion and I Came Upon This uh
something that's been around for
supposedly since man was designing
things and it's called the golden
rectangle or the Golden Ratio or the
Divine proportion it's
1.618 so are the are the the to get
bigger are to get smaller it's dot
618 so B what I did is take 60
in times 61
that gives me a figure times that figure
times that 618 that's 618 and you get
about four or five well you you it'll
keep compressing however however far you
want to
go but you you get a range of
figures and I thought all right so I
made my Branch lengths
accordingly and then I put the spacing
on the branches according to
that and when I got done with when I
built the very first one I got done with
it and I looked back at it and I thought
man it looks pretty good I mean it
looked pretty good I'm not bragging or
anything but it it looked pretty good so
there really must be something to it
because it's it's something that that
that people or artists or whoever it was
years ago they measured things in nature
there's some there's some you know
method to the madness so to speak
because I I was trying to think if I
ever even had any exposure to art or and
I remember in senior year in high school
we all took an art
class because the teacher was
good-looking and we could get a a it was
one of those classes that you could just
take to make up credit you didn't need
it like you know basket weaving or
something or you know just it wasn't it
was a non necessary class that you
needed to graduate or whatever but we
took the we all took it the only reason
we took it was this G was
probably just out of college she was
probably what we were 17 18 she was
probably what 21 22 23 you know so that
was my exposure to Art till till you
know I was trying to figure out this
design thing but you know there's
been many things written about it and
there's also calipers you can buy that
give
you uh in other words if if it's this
it's it's kind of a three-legged caliper
that opens up you know proportionately
so you got you have a Mark here a Mark
here then a Mark here and it's yeah it's
it's kind of interesting it's it's an
interesting way to do it well that's
what I did that's how I I made these it
sounds convoluted but like I say you
know you can wing it a little bit but I
like having a plan I like working on a
plan okay let's get to the bending jig
and we'll uh we'll get some uh get some
of these sticks bent up