There is steady demand for quality logs of all hardwood species except poplar. Oak, as ever, is popular for planking and beams but all grades are selling, including specialist products for oak framed buildings. There is also a growing demand for smaller diameters for cleft fencing and smaller sawlogs.
Larger diameters of ash are in demand as it is increasingly used in place of elm in furniture. Meanwhile, smaller diameters are finding their way into a host of different products from kindling to sports goods.
The sycamore season is just starting and early indications are very encouraging. Beech is always the Cinderella but I’m very excited with the results of our joint project with FIRA and partners in Finland. We sent a parcel of small dimension stock, sawn from beech thinnings, to be heat treated in western Finland. The results are excellent – carefully measured samples returned with no degrade but with the appearance of walnut! From preliminary tests the material is much more stable than kiln-dried beech and it is much easier to finish than the control sample.
Notable success
Demand for larger grades of chestnut is as strong as ever, but we do not have much in Wales. But we have chalked up a notable success with a high performance modern casement window, which uses small section chestnut (or oak) in a process which combines the four stages of lamination, profiling, jointing and assembly into a single process. It’s a bit different but it came through the BS 6375 process at “2000”, the highest level.
The same result was achieved for an updated box sash window which was a joint project with James Joinery of Ratford Bridge in Pembrokeshire, with financial support from the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and a lot of advice from Paddy Hislop at TRADA. Replacement windows in conservation areas are always contentious. How do you reconcile modern performance and traditional looks? Now there’s no need to compromise.
There’s plenty of demand for larger dimensions of yew, cherry and fruitwoods and, in Wales at least, the hobby users will pay good prices for turning and carving blanks.
We’ve been busy here at the Coed Cymru workshops perfecting a system of compounding end-grain tiles in birch, alder and a range of other species which produces a ready-to-lay carpet tile. This project was funded by the Welsh Development Agency and Kenton Jones of Welshpool is on board. He intends to sell this system alongside the larger square and hexagonal tiles which have been finding their way to prestige projects for a number of years. The original birch test floor in our foyer still looks like new after nine years of serious abuse!
Animal bedding
We’ve been helping the Pontbren farmers and ADAS Pwllpeiran with a series of trials using woodchip for sheep and cattle bedding. On the face of it this is an enormous market as Wales imports 300,000 tonnes of straw a year, but the timber has to be dry before it is chipped. However, the Pontbren group has it well sorted. They have used dry hardwood slab, topwood and thinnings for four years now and report benefits to animal health and lower labour costs. The composted manure is giving excellent results in their tree nursery and in laboratory tests as a peat-free growing medium. If this process catches on, it really would close the marketing circle for such quantities, poor quality and milling residues.
Back in the mainstream Charltons is still hungry for small logs for mining timber and any hardwood species except poplar will do. St Regis is at full capacity but with ideal weather for harvesting it is working to quota.
All in all a positive picture, but its worth re-emphasising the price difference between the best and the rest – and the best only comes from far-sighted forest management.
