Wood Shed Clean Up

It's been a while since I've worked on my woodshop here in Laguna and because I have projects that I had to work on as soon as possible, cleaning up wasn't exactly my top priority, but today I've picked up the broom and started cleaning whatever I could as long as there was daylight.

Bits

I have a small wood shed next to our house here in Sta Rosa and here I make my book arts and other projects. Though it's small, I have enough tools to create even the most sophisticated furniture. Like they say, it's not the tools ~ it's the hand.

It's hard to buy good quality hand planers here in the Philippines, so carpenters are the ones who actually make them for themselves. Here are some of my planers where in the middle was made here in the shed with my uncle, the one on the right is bought from a Japan surplus store and the left one is sold locally.

Saw dust are so fine and as time passes, it can turn as cake on the floor. Scraping them is the key to removing them and it's also my favorite part of the chore. Cleaning is a nice and stress-relieving activity, it is a meditative work that is fruitful both for my working environment and my inner being.

When I was young I would rather watch
my father work in his furniture shop than
go to school.

Here's the project I have been working on. It is a bunch of S-Staffs or otherwise known as Buugeng, I'm the only maker in the Philippines but it was known that the idea or concept originated in Japan. The S-Staff that I make have a different shape because flow art enthusiasts prefer the shape that I create, the weight is also better. 

The wood shed is also my art studio because I work mostly with wood but when it comes to paper, I have another working area specific for that. People don't understand what skill goes into carpentry but it's quite a sophisticated craft. 

They think that as long as it is cut with a saw then it's fine as it is, smoothing and sanding takes so much time and people don't consider it as hard labor. It takes a lot of patience to perfectly provide a smoothness on the edge of the wood and it also takes time. I'm happy to work with clients that gives me the time I need to work on a project because if I feel I'm pressured to finish a project as soon as possible, I seem to dislike it and would let go of the project easily while the quality is also affected.