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

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

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

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 !

Next, get rid of the band, release the timber and make sure you have everything you need to hand before you start…

.. and have a quick brush up to keep Peter’s domain in the manner in which it is accustomed.

Now we start the important stuff…  put a tape measure along the length and take the measure.. this one is 5.6 m long.

Then we start the the laying out.

With the smaller thickness logs the guys can use their brute strength to handle each board – thicker boards need the forklift for every move (which is why we’re getting them a vacuum lift but ssshhhhhhh don’t tell them…  it’s a surprise!!) - ok, back to work.. so the first board goes down onto the bearers..

Graham gets down and takes the width measure from half way down the log so that we get an average width…  remember, trees are tapered - wide at the bottom narrowing at the top – so it would be very difficult to measure every board and log accurately…  instead we measure to get a median.

The measures are recorded on our bandmill production sheet so we can enter the information onto our stock system for future reference and also to calculate volume of production yield.

Then we get to the sticks.

We use  fresh sawn Poplar (otherwise known as Tulipwood) for sticks. In our experience this species is benign – it doesn’t react with any other species & doesn’t stain – and is suitable for use with species we’re cutting. We do re-use them until they whilst they are straight and clean. Once they are damaged, bent, dirty,  rotten they are no good as sticks but are great for kindling!

Graham places the sticks down the length of the board…  starting 100mm in from the end – so we can get our fingers into the end of the log when we need to! – and then placing them evenly every 500mm. The positioning of the sticks on the first board is where the sticks on every consecutive board will go.

The main purpose of ’sticking’ logs is to allow the ventilation of each board as evenly as possible and in that process ensuring that pressure (weight) is evenly distributed so boards will season and air dry as flat as possible.  It’s effectively ‘setting’ the timber in position because it’s very soft when first cut and hardens over the years of drying.

You can imagine what would happen if the sticks were staggered !?!

Recording the log measure and the timber characteristics is important. This is information we then store and it allows us to have a view of the stock from the safety and warmth of our office (one of our dream goals is to make that information available via our website … with pictures of course!).

We also mark the boards, making notes on knots, splits, cracks and dimensions, this same information is noted on the production sheets. This board has a split in the grain between some of that striking  medullary ray. In our T&T logs the centre boards are quarter sawn so have medullary ray but this does vary in intensity). This is a good one!

So we carry on down, or up, the log until it is completely whole again.

Did you notice that strange looking hammer that Graham is keeping close at hand? It’s very precious so who ever is in charge of it is under alot of pressure not to lose it!

It’s our tag hammer. It fixes the timber tags to logs and boards.  Every round log has a tag that someone.. usually Tom.. has stuck on the log when it was out in the woods after felling.

The round timber tag number is useful up to a point.. but then we want to re-tag it and re-number it once it has been through the bandmill so that we can enter it into our air dried stock.

Both tag numbers are logged on the production sheet, and that information stays with the timber for it’s life in our yard, so that we always have an audit trail back to the point of origin.

It’s the process that FSC and PEFC certification uses, we just happen to have managed our English timber this way as a matter of course.  English timber doesn’t really need a certificate to prove it’s worthiness interms of sustainability…  it is inherently sustainable and audit-able and the felling has always been overseen by the Forestry Commission… but I digress..

On to tags.

Old round timber tag, new air dried timber tag.

Invariably the old tag gets cut through or falls off… good job Graham makes a note of it!

Now we’re getting to the end of the line… the log is whole, sticked, tagged, measured and listed on production.

Graham lovingly straps the log up, compressing the boards slightly ensuring the sticks are fixed inposition and won’t wander when the log…  especially a 5.6m log like this one… bows under it’s own weight on the fork tines.

Now all we have to do is put it into the air dried yard with the rest of the Oak 41mm stock cut this winter!  Which bay is it in again Graham? 

Now look at all the sticky logs!

And here they will sit.. organised and tidy.. and sticked… and they’ll get circulated within the stack – usually no more than 3 or 4 logs high – until they have been seasoned fully and are ready to be kiln dried ( when they get to 18 – 22% moisture.

The logs in this picture will be in Peter’s kiln dried stock shed in a minimum of 2 years time..  watching paint dry has nothing on watching wood dry!  We’ve turned (no pun intended)  it into an art form here at Cocking… 

and the last thing you can accuse us of is impatience… ok, well maybe I’m a bit on the impatient side…  don’t snigger you lot!

So now you know all about sticking, the English Woodlands Timber way.

Know more about timber:

The Timber Research and Development Association is a first-port-of-call timber resource. You can register to get a limited amount of inforamtion – still useful – or join and take advantage of everything they have to offer - if you work with wood I’d recommend it  http://www.trada.co.uk/

Forestry Commission – find out more about forest industry grants & licenses and how English forest & woodland is managed http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/fchomepages.nsf/hp/gbigl

About timber grading…  it’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth   http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/MTG-WEB.pdf/$FILE/MTG-WEB.pdf

About certification and chain of custody – PEFC  http://www.pefc.co.uk/about-pefc/about  and FSC  http://www.fsc.org/about-fsc.html

I have no idea why this cafe is called waney edge but next time I go to Melksham I’m going there… how could I not?  http://www.waneyedgecafe.net/

I must be hungry or something.. look what I just found.. another wood based cafe name  http://www.theoldsawmill.co.uk/

I was looking to see how other people dry their timber and I found amazingly little of real interest (apart from in the USA!!)  but I did find Jeff Segal who really knows his stuff… from the log right through to the finely crafted furniture … http://www.jeffsegalworkshop.co.uk/timber/index.php

Books – I love books and there are so many great wood and wood related books. I thought this looked like a very useful book Wood and How to Dry it  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wood-How-Dry-Fine-Woodworking/dp/091880454X/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1328716520&sr=8-17#_  although haven’t read it. It’s a compilation of articles from Fine Woodworking  http://www.finewoodworking.com/  magazine which is very well thought of – whoever reads it first… the book that is… I want a review..!

Visit our website  http://www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk to know more about us.

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.

We’ve only really known Christine for the past year or so as she is fairly new to cabinetry. She came on a visit to the yard with John Lloyd when she was on one of his courses (see below for links to John’s furniture making courses) after being made redundant from her work in a Pensions Technical Department !!!

As she says herself, she has never looked back and looking at these photographs it’s clear why not…  she is obviously a natural! We’re very impressed, with her innate ability, with the way the course prepared and equipped her for the craft of furniture making and with her bravery and determination in the face of one of life’s curveballs!

I’ve noticed Christine has an eye for special bits of timber (she’s harbouring some spalted Walnut as we speak!). She knows her way round our yard and likes to use a wide range of woods,  Oak, Pippy Yew (you have to be good to use Pippy anything well), Sweet Chestnut, Walnut, Sycamore, Cedar of Lebanon.. you name it.. she’s used it!  

She has a small workshop at her home in Caterham, working for clients in the south east and countrywide. I happen to know Christine just loves her work, and she loves to please her clients. She is happy to look at any design… as long as it’s in wood! So before you make your next trip down to the high street for a new dining table or some bedside cabinets maybe you should give her a call and have her make you an heirloom you can be proud of!  

If you’d like to see more, go visit her website and say hello www.christinelaytonfurniture.co.uk  and here is where Christine Layton learned her craft with John Lloyd  www.johnlloydfinefurniture.co.uk/

If hearing about Christine has made you want to throw in the towel on your day job and try something closer to your heart like working with wood here are some other furniture making courses that we know about…

Great residential courses as well as long term study  www.westdean.org.uk/CollegeChannel/FullTimeCourses/FurnitureandRelatedObjects.aspx

Marc Fish is a fine furniture maker who runs a studio and takes in students in Brighton www.marcfish.co.uk/

Chichester college cover furniture making in a couple of their courses with fantastic results www.chichester.ac.uk/Course/Leisure-and-Pleasure/Furniture-Making/ADE707/

www.chichester.ac.uk/Course/Art,-Design-and-Media/EDX-Dip-in-3D-Design-L3/ART156/

Hooked on what you’ve seen and need even more info? Try the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers  www.furnituremkrs.co.uk/

If you’d like to see the work of another talented woman furniture maker visit www.katiewalkerfurniture.com/

More about women in woodworking 

http://www.guildofwomenwoodworkers.org.uk/

www.womeninwoodworking.com/wiw/wiw.aspx 

www.wooden-box-maker.com/women-woodworkers.html

Did you buy some of our timber and turn it into something beautiful? Got pictures?  Well don’t keep them to yourself … we need to see them!!!  

Send them to  sarah@englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk and show us what you’re been up to.

Visit our website www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk and tell us what you think…

…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.

I love the  neat, ordered little sticks of Poplar,  all vertically in line keeping the fresh yellow slices of wood flat and straight as they dry…  and the curls of bark that drop away as the timber lets go of it’s old life as a tree and becomes the dense, hardened wood we need it to be to make smooth shiny table tops or delicate little chair legs.

But for some reason it always makes me think of food!

Well not food exactly but that feeling you have when you’ve just been food shopping and you’ve got home and filled the cupboards with everything you’ve bought and the larder is full of mouthwateringly fresh food, everything you could possibly want to eat…

.. that’s what  the air dried log stacks makes me think of… they’re our larder of logs!  We just have to wait  2 or 3 or 4 or 5 years before they’re ready to eat… I mean kiln of course ! Yum.

Just thought I’d share.

www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk

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/

Bespoke Green Oak make a special effort to only use homegrown Oak in their furniture, joinery and garden structures. This timber comes mainly from trees grown in the south eastern quarter of the country – Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey. 

This means that when you commission work from Peter at Bespoke Green Oak you are supporting foresters, woodland workers and independent sawmills who are hard at work preserving our woodland heritage and our national timber industry.

You have to admire this genuinely sustainable approach to woodworking as the market is flooded with wonderful imported timbers.. but we’re on Peter’s side… to us nothing beats English timber.. and luckily we have lots of it to play with!

For more about English timber go to www.localtimber.co.uk  and www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk

Peter’s photos were taken by www.propertyfocus.co

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.

In these pictures he’s laid it out to see how it goes together… pretty amazingly well I’d say!

I think he’s gone for a TGV profile.. speedily and expertly machined on our new Weinig 6 side moulder…

And we didn’t even select for so-called defects because we love our wood warts and all…  but if this is what downgrade looks like…

Find out more about beautiful hardwoods you could use to make a bespoke floor of your own by visitng our website http://www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk/dried_hardwoods.html or emailing us with your ideas at sales@englishwoodlandlandstimber.co.uk or by calling us on  01730 816941.

What species would you mix together to make a floor?

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!

When the V&A Museum* invited architect Terunobu Fujimori to take part in an exhibition in the summer of 2010 he chose to create a small timber teahouse in a courtyard space using his trademark charring method to treat the timber and he chose native Sweet Chestnut to work with to make the structure.

MDM Props, http://www.mdmprops.co.uk/ who are experts at constructing this type of installation, got in touch to see if we could help with the timber. They came down to the sawmill bringing Mr Fujimori and he selected the Sweet Chestnut log he liked from a selection we had in the yard.

Then Philip and Graham obligingly quartered the log which was to the ‘legs’ for the teahouse that you see above.

If only it were that simple.

The good old re-saw certainly made hard work of it.

Our guys had to lift the log by hand – a log that was a good 500mm diameter and at least 4.0m long and it wasn’t straight or round… of course – and get it up onto the sawbed and hold it in position so it would cut where Mr Fujimori had marked it up.

This was easier said than done I can assure you…  those poor guys, they really struggled… a light perspiration was raised and tempers were frayed… arms were pulled from sockets but they held it together, literally… and four quarters of English Sweet Chestnut were sawn. Amazingly Philip and Graham are still talking to each other !

Best of all, the architect was very happy…  there just aren’t that many places you can go these days to select your own log and have it sawn up on the spot ! we’re are so glad to be one of those places… it definitely makes our work more rewarding.

I would say we will all have fond memories of that old re-saw but I think ‘fond’ will be stretching the definition of the word… but as seen here in this beautiful little building… at least it was good for something !

*See more on the project at the V&A http://www.vam.ac.uk/channel/people/architecture/terunobu_fujimoris_vanda_treehouse/  

There is some footage showing the method of charring of the timber which is very interesting… I want to have a go here at the sawmill - be nice on the outside of our office I think – but no-one will let me have a go…  I cannot for the life of me think why…

For more about Sweet Chestnut and other timbers visit  www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk

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