A bit of excitement on a gloomy day

Through the window I spotted the round timber lorry edging into the yard.

Wait until you see what was on this lorry… very exciting!  This is the first of about 10 lorries that are on their way into the yard with some stunning logs.

Graham and Grant have just started sticking them but they aren’t going fast enough for me to show you the evidence now. They do have a camera with them to photograph as they work so I’m looking forward to seeing what’s on the menu…

I heard mention of huge logs having to be cut down from 30ft length and so wide and heavy they have to be transported in half logs… I don’t think the two G’s will be lifting those boards by hand !

Visit our website to find out more about what we do on our website www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk

Big Boys Toys

If you go down to the woods today….  you won’t find a teddy bear’s picnic !

But you will find Yogi (a bit of a teddy bear!) …

 

wielding some state of the art forestry equipment and  implementing cutting-edge forestry management courtesy of English Woodland Timber’s Forest Management team.

Now, these machines are seriously advanced bits of kit… and they’re  not toys at all…  but as you can see.. they are BIG.

 

Yogi  operates the Harvester.  This machine does what it says on the tin… it harvests trees.

It does that by gripping the tree at the base, it then saws it off, controls it’s fall, runs the timber length through the head taking off the limbs (measuring and feeding data into the onboard computer as it goes).

It saws off the top & then runs the timber length back through the head, cutting into set lengths as selected by Yogi based on the information supplied by the computer.

The end result: nice neat stacks of timber set out by product type (sawlog, fencing, woodfuel) ready for extraction. I’ve worked with guys who were trained to fell trees with axes and cross-cut saws, not that long ago really, so things have moved on quite a bit…. oh, did I mention that Yogi’s harvester has a self-levelling cab (for when he’s on steep banks), and a built in fridge and pie warmer.

Bruce operates the Forwarder. This is a massive tractor sort of thing that picks up the timber left by the Harvester. It grabs and loads it onto the bed at the rear, taking up to 12 tonnes of timber at a time. Like the harvester this machine is built to travel over seriously difficult terrain.

Bruce then takes the loaded Forwarder out of the harvesting stand (the forest) to where a timber lorry can pick up the wood, where he stacks the timber in lovely neat stacks.

In the hands of experienced and skilful operators like Bruce & Yogi these machines can get up to 70 tonnes of timber from standing tree to roadside stack in a single day.

For a number of years we have been providing a forest management service to the owners of 1500 acres of beautiful and productive pine woodland in Surrey. Quite a bit of timber has come out in that time, much of it at the hands of Bruce & Yogi and most of it from thinnings – where we remove a proportion of the standing crop leaving more space for the better trees to grow on (see below).

 

On a site as big as this though clearfelling (taking all the trees off an area) is inevitable in order to harvest crops and provide open sites for the next generation of trees to grow.

Once the harvesting gang have moved off we need to bring another big machine on site to clear the arisings (branch wood and tops) in order to allow the young trees to establish and grow. In this case Mark has his 18 tonne 360 excavator on site and is raking the arisings into piles before burning them.

The raking has the added advantage of slightly scarifying the ground, which enables better regeneration of young trees. The burning is done in a controlled way, which is preferable to leaving the material in piles as a temptation for the local yobs to set fire to the forest when it’s to dry to burn safely.

I feel quite feeble when I get my chainsaw out the day after I’ve been to see these boys in operation, but the chainsaw is still the vital piece of forestry kit, as you’ll see in future blogs….

This post was written by Andy Wright one of our chartered Forest Managers. Andy studied Forestry at University College of Wales Bangor gaining a higher second class BSc Forestry Hons. Born and raised in East Sussex his family still farm at Blackboys. Andy spent seven years as a Woodland Officer with the Forestry Commission helping owners in Surrey and South Wales. He also recently gained full membership of the Institute of Chartered Foresters.

For more about English Woodlands Timber forestry operations and Woodland Management visit our website http://www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk/woodland_management.html

Abominable Snow Men

You’ve seen the footprints in the snow…  you’ve heard the howl in the halflight…  for those of you who have wondered if David and Paul, our Foresters, were real,  these visions in amongst the Rhodododendron are they!

Find out more about our Forestry works http://www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk/woodland_management.html

Sticky timbers

It’s all about the wood.

It’s why we do what we do. It’s all we do.

Our work  is to produce beautiful timber. It’s the kind of work that hasn’t changed in over 30 years… and the same can probably be said for our methods but that is a good thing!

We’re all working with a knowledge that has been passed down through the company since the sawmill was started on this site in the 1940’s (wanna see some pictures? … give me a few days… I know I put them somewhere round here) .

So I thought it might be interesting to try to capture some of the ‘how’ of what we do.

The guys seemed quite into that, so one day Graham and Grant went to work with a camera and this is what they gave me.

How we put a log into ‘stick’

I think it’s a nice place to start because it’s the near beginning of  life-in-the-yard if you’re a piece of wood…   ready?

Hang on it’s a roller coaster ride!

So, the log Graham and Grant are working on here is a 46mm thick (will be 41mm stock), prime Oak cut through & through (T&T). It’s one of a mixed parcel of Sweet Chestnut, Oak & Pippy Oak that were cut in the first week of January this year.

First of all the freshly cut, tightly banded log gets retrieved from the yard and brought to a good flat working space with the loadall. The back of Peter’s kiln dried shed is a favourite spot… out of the weather and within earshot of Cliff and the Shadows !

Are you sure you’re in the right job?

Christine Layton was slightly reluctant to show me photo’s of her work (because she is a very humble and modest person) but I have taken advantage of her sweet nature to raid her portfolio to show them off anyway…

This lady makes fine furniture. She works on commissions only but don’t let that very formal term put you off… it just means she doesn’t sell her furniture in shops.

Mouthwateringly fresh logs

When I have a spare minute I like to go out in the air dried yard and wander among the log stacks…

…not only because I love to get wafts of Cedar of Lebanon perfume on the breeze and not only because there is so much incredible nature to see in our yard (we have amazing birdlife.. and hares!!)  but also because I love to see the sawn logs all stacked up, drying.

English Oak folding doors

Peter Guille at Bespoke Green Oak sent us pictures of these fantastic folding doors he made from our English Oak… WOW..  who needs solid walls when you can have moving ones like this?

Peter works not so far away from us at his workshop near Romsey, Hampshire. To see more of his handiwork drop in to see him or visit his website http://www.bespokegreenoak.co.uk/ or blog  http://bespokegreenoak.wordpress.com/

Does your teahut have a floor like this?

 

I just couldn’t wait to show you all this floor that Philip has prepared for the cabin from our downgraded Ash & American Walnut stocks.

They came, they re-sawed, they conquered… the V&A

I’m obviously still getting over the loss of the re-saw !  I’ve been looking back at it’s usefulness over the years I realise we only really fired it up for all the really awkward jobs… timber that was too small for the Stenner bandsaw, or too big for the Wadkin straight line edger or when someone needed some featheredge cladding at the last minute..  or anything  that it wasn’t physically possible to do with a chainsaw.

It was good (and I use this term loosely) for re-sawing air dried Oak beams, or for square edging the unwieldy 100mm or 120mm French waney edge Oak boards..  or for any other unusual job that no other machine could handle… like the quartering of a Sweet Chestnut log for an art project at the V&A!

The re-saw at work

To prove it really did work once here is the machine itself in action.. the re-saw.. Graham at the helm… ripping down some fresh sawn Oak which we couldn’t do on any other machine.

More on vintage woodworking machinery

http://vintagemachinery.org/

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/John_Pickles_and_Sons

Find out more about what we do at www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk