My interest in woodworking started way back in high school. I graduated High School from Don Bosco Technical High School, Cebu City, Philippines. It was four years of formal High School Woodworking classes and during the summers I volunteered in the woodshop making roof trusses, doors, and windows for the school and church building renovation/expansion. Those four years got me started in woodworking. We learned every thing to know in woodshop, from selecting and drying wood, wood machinery from hand to hand held all the way through large mass production, planning and drawing, and woodshop administration. I graduated college in the Philippines with a five year BS degree in Architecture from the University of San Carlos. Which tied right in with my love for woodworking but at a much larger scale in the construction of homes and buildings.

I’m half Filipino born and raised in the Philippines. Married to Ellen, a Filipina who’s also into crafts. We have two sons, Kenneth who’s 22 and Wesley a 10 year old. We live in central New Jersey. For a living I work with computers for UPS. As a hobby I like to work with wood, making crafts and occasionally volunteer making Furniture for our local parish church or Martial Arts Club.

One of my current pet woodworking projects is making Wood Kris Swords. These swords are used by a number of Philippine dance troupes and Filipino Martial Arts clubs. They are patterned after the real meteoric steel Kris swords from the Philippines. The Wood Kris Swords all came about when my wife asked me to make several swords to be used by a Philippine native dance troupe that she was a member of. It seemed that they were using cardboard swords for a special dance and were having problems with the swords. So I made a number of wave swords from wood for them to use. Word got around to the other dance troupes and a Martial Arts Club in our area. These swords were not only good for dance and for Martial Arts but also for wall decorations, and soon I was taking orders.

For tools, I have two band saws, a 10" radial arm saw, a 10" table saw, an 8" jointer, a 15" Planer, a Radial arm drill press, a 16" scroll saw, a 40" wood lathe, a Chain saw with a lumber mill attachment a compressor and nail gun, a 6" belt sander, a number of hand held sanders, and a number of routers. What I really need is a proper workshop. I currently work out of my one car garage and have to move equipment around or take them outside in the driveway in order to use them It gets quite cramp when working on medium size projects. Large projects or orders are susceptible to weather related delays. Storage of lumber is also a problem.

I usually get my materials from a number of local lumber/hardware stores, but once in a while I have access to raw timber like pine, oak, poplar, walnut, and cherry. That’s when the chain saw with a lumber mill attachment comes in handy. The biggest tree my friend and I took down and planked was a 38" diameter 60 foot high walnut tree, it took us 2 ½ days. Most of the other times I get logs from a local landscaping or tree service company. They usually give them away and even deliver then for free. Another cheap source for craft material are wooden shipping crates or pallets, some businesses beg you to take them away (saves them from paying for disposal of the crates).

I usually display my Wood Swords at local Martial Arts events like FMA Tournaments or Seminars. You can visit my Wood Sword site at http://www.oocities.org/michaelpinoy/, or http://woodkrisswords.homepage.com/, contact me via email at michaelenad@netscape.net.