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I cant remember if I have ever posted here before so if not hello from 'sunny Devon' where it is 1 degree C and grey.

I bought some Satsuki Azalea nursery stock a couple of years ago and want to thicken the stem and repot the remaining one .
The plant is still in the original pot and soil not bonsai soil and certainly not Kanuma - yet.
The other one I bought with it died. The soil went anaerobic and stank when I took it out of the pot.
The two stood next to each other and lived in the same conditions.

I want to end up in a shallower pot so need to reduce the soil depth and maybe root prune and some how got hold of the idea
that to thicken the stem it needs more room or root space.
Should I rake off the maximum existing soil or just enough to get it into a training pot then fill with Kanuma or a Kanuma mix?
Or maybe do nothing and wait for it to go pot bound?

Greetings from a rather chilly and grey day here too! It sounds like you’re making thoughtful progress with your Satsuki Azalea. To thicken the stem, more root space can indeed help as it encourages stronger growth. You might consider repotting it into a training pot with a Kanuma mix—raking off just enough soil to allow the roots to spread comfortably without causing too much stress. Waiting until it’s pot-bound might slow progress unnecessarily.

I would definetely sort out the trunk line in the near future. Althou it may slow down trunk thickening at the moment, I think it is necessary to avoid future problems with inverse taper.

Just do not rush away removing lower branches. They are important for develop tapering trunk. In my opinion more important than the thickening itself.

In my way, there are no reason to rush for creating a flat root system. During thickening the tree benefits from a big root system.

Azaleas can handle anaerobic soils. What it cannot handle is hydrogen sulfite. That is the thing that was smelling on the dead tree. High nitrogen fertilizer will keep the anaerobic bacteria to use nitrogen instead of sulfur for respiration and stop producing hydrogen sulphite. It is needed for trunk thickening as well.

Kanuma is for mature trees in shallow pots. No need to spend your money on it at this time.

But as always, that is what I would do. It is your tree and you decide what you want it to be and how to get there.

I would probably want to remove at least one or two of the lower branches that will not be needed in the final design, also the wire is doing nothing and needs to be removed. I would prune hard to encourage budding Azaleas can be pruned hard and will grow back. But apart from removing the wire I would not do any of it now. Spring is the time, forget flowers next year and do the pruning. The correct time to prune then is after flowering and that goes for re potting, But as Tropfrog says, it is your tree.