W.L. West & Sons Ltd.
Timber Talks - May 2005

Pictures of West's Wood Show 2005

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Nerves got the better of Jo!

Well what a show!!! We hope that a lot of you managed to pay a visit on one of the two days. Jo West who was one of the main organisers of the show did a lot of panicking before the show, but she was happy when she saw around 800 visitors come through the gates over the Friday and Saturday. She was very reassured that the advertising had worked with much word of mouth through the various clubs she regularly talks to. A great result given it was the first event of its kind.

Seasoned professionals gave aspirations to many

With wood turnery from professionals Stuart Mortimer, Gary Rance and Les Thorne, visitors were given expert demonstrations. All of these woodturners had displays of their work, much of which is valued in the thousands, and some of which ends up in the American market.

Local turners were well represented

Local woodturners Ted Farrow and Bill Thorne were also turning as were some of the local woodturning clubs, represented by The Surrey Association of Wood Turners and Forest of Bere Woodturners Association, this particular craft was well represented.
To allow interest to a wider audience the Solent Guild of Woodcarvers brought along many of their members and showed the different styles of carving.

W.L.West & Sons Ltd customers came too

We felt that it was important to allow our customers to be represented and to that end we had some superb furniture from the Edward Barnsley Workshop, two exquisite pieces from Katie Walker, one of which was a very clever bedroom mirror which was adjusted by moving a heavy steel ball in pre-machined hollows in the base. Alan Engelfield entrusted us with a three piece marquetry screen depicting a Venetian Screen. On sale for £10,000 this piece was just amazing. Having this work displayed in our conservatory was fantastic and gave our teams and our customers an insight into what can be achieved with a lot of patience. Hopefully it also gave our visitors inspiration for future projects.

Peter Furlong from Heirloom Toys brought along a range of toys, but the centre pieces were without doubt the hand built rocking horses that he makes. Jack Hill showed the audience how he makes chairs, and also brought along two friends who carved their way through the two days.

Education well represented

Education didn’t miss out either with both Chichester and Crawley Colleges bringing along examples of the furniture students work. We hope at any future shows these colleges will be able to have students actually constructing their projects. Chichester and Crawley are both part of a Centre of Vocational Excellence (COVE), and it would be great to see them working together.

Suppliers came too

Many of Jo’s suppliers supported the event, with Robert Sorby, Craft Supplies, Chestnut Products, Crown Tools, Brimarc, Ashley Isles, Pamber Woodcraft, Planet Manufacturing and Toolpost all supporting the event, and hopefully being as pleasantly surprised by the public’s response as we were. 

and the result?

Jo has commented that she met many of her existing customers, and also a lot of new ones who we hope will become regular visitors to our shop. We had many positive comments, and one area that seemed to be very popular was the tours around the business. We aimed to give a flavour of how to convert a log into a thing of beauty. A very old trade.

Next years show? Well its still in discussion but we are confident that we will hold the show again, and with further diversity. We aim to give more space to our existing trade customers to show their expert skills and products. We hope to attract a wide variety of wood based crafts and skills.

We must not forget to mention our own skilled gatemakers who demonstrated how we construct our hardwood field gates.

We will be putting a gallery of pictures on the web version of this issue of Timber Talks which can be found by clicking here.            

Finally—thank you to all who visited and those who exhibited, watch this space for the dates for next year.

W.L. WEST & SONS LTD
Selham, Petworth, West Sussex GU28 0PJ
United Kingdom

Tel: 01798 861611   
Fax: 01798 861633   
E-mail: sales@wlwest.co.uk

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