Making good furniture from bamboo

By Bambang Tiong

KLATEN, Central Java (JP): Alip Prawito, 60, believes that being retired should not mean that one's creative juices stop flowing. Armed with talent and a little money, he began to think about how to turn goods usually considered worthless into a money-making venture.

On Oct. 1, 1997, exactly four months after he began his retirement as a civil servant from the Ministry of Education and Culture, Alip decided to turn bamboo of the ori type into artistic items of furniture. While most people make use of straight bamboo stems, Alip makes use of the knotted part of at one end of the stem and three meters lengthwise from this end. He prefers bamboo stems with a curved shape.

"I make use of the three-meter-length of the curved lower part of the bamboo stem because it is here that we can find a fine artistic taste," he said.

Alip, who lives in Klaten, a small town in Central Java, said his idea came from a TV report on a furniture exhibition and his own experience of seeing uniquely shaped wooden furniture in the offices or homes of government officials.

He asked himself if it would be possible to replace expensive wood with a cheaper but no less unique material.

He decided upon bamboo, and came up with Rp 1 million for his initial capital. He spent Rp 200,000 of the amount on 400 ori bamboos from the nearby village of Wonosari. Two trucks were needed to take the bamboos to his house. Alip spent the remaining amount of his initial capital on equipment and other materials. At present a bamboo stem measuring three meters from the knot part at one end costs from Rp 3,000 to Rp 4,000 while transportation by truck has increased from Rp 40,000 to Rp 75,000 per trip.

Alip always handles the purchase of the bamboo to ensure that he obtains good-quality material for the furniture he is going to make. For best results, the bamboo must be at least 20 years old to ensure that it will be durable. It must have beautiful and artistic curves to allow his imagination to work well when he makes the furniture items. Nature is a source of creativity to man and not the other way around, he believes.

Using simple tools like an iron hammer, chisel, saw, curved chisel, a broad knife, sandpaper, nails and glue for wooden materials, Alip can turn ori bamboo, usually used for firewood, into items of a high artistic value. At first the bamboo will be soaked in flowing water or in the mud for one full month. Its outer skin is peeled off and afterwards a design is created, depending on the size of the bamboo and also on its curves. After the design is made, the bamboo will be cut.

From ori bamboos, Alip can make cupboards, tables, chairs, TV racks and divan beds. To make a two-door cupboard measuring 170 cm high, 60 cm wide and 110 cm long, Alip needed 12 bamboo stems. Assisted by three craftsmen, he made the cupboard in a week at a cost of Rp 200,000. Later he sold it for Rp 300,000.

To make the furniture, the pieces of bamboo are fastened together with glue and nails. Then the joined parts are covered with ropes and nailed to give a neat appearance. Afterwards, the items are left to dry in the sun for three days to ensure that they no longer contain any water. When the drying process is finished, the items are colored with melamine to ensure that the original color is not lost. The set of bamboo table and chairs is again left to dry in the sun. Other items, Alip added, will need half of the glue and coloring materials used for a set of table and chairs.

Alip's workshop, called "Agung Rejeki", is also a showroom for his products. He runs the business with the help of three employees.

To promote his bamboo products, he said, he has taken part in three exhibitions, twice in Klaten in 1998 and once at the Garuda Hotel in Yogyakarta in 1999. Thanks to these exhibitions, Alip has received orders from abroad, such as Australia, Singapore and Korea. Domestically, he said, his products can now be found in Bali, Jakarta, Surabaya and some other cities. He said that of all the bamboo products, tables and chairs sold best because he could sell eight to 10 sets a month for Rp 7 to Rp 10 million a month.

"I don't care much about my turnover. As long as I can recover the cost of production, it's all right. What's most important to me is that I can express my artistic feelings and at the same time help reduce unemployment by providing a skill to some unemployed people so that later they can start their own business," he said.

Alip does not like to be called a businessman. He said that his business was not totally oriented to enriching himself and his family. Nevertheless, he is optimistic that his bamboo products will have bright prospects because they are cheap, durable and artistic. Besides, few other people are interested in making furniture from ori bamboo. He claims that his is one of only two such businesses in Indonesia, with the other one in Malang, East Java.