W.L. West & Sons Ltd.
Timber Talks - June 2007

COURSES - CLICK HERE

Macmillan Rother Raft Race 2006 - 25th Year Review

HMS Victory Special - Click Here  

Atrocious weather does not deter custom

Despite such shocking weather trade has been so busy, we have had to extend our lead times to accommodate an increase of over 15% of orders going into our system in the last six weeks. This is great news, but can be frustrating, wouldn't it be great to have extra staff at times like this !

We know others in the trade are generally ticking over, we have been able to be that bit more competitive in certain areas and the results have meant more orders and more timber out of the gates!

The CBI report this month show others in our sector are in line with stocks, but for what's left of UK manufacturing, there is an optimistic feel to it, providing interest rates stay within reason.

Price expectations are still increasing from cost-push inflation. They are steadily climbing, the CBI concluded that there is evidence of pricing pressure and demand is improving. Output remains firm, this is good news.

Moulding work has been very successful at WLW, and more investment is going to take place in this area. We aim over the next few months to try to get all of our  moulding profiles scanned, this will enable us to provide our customers with a copy by email. This will enable them to see easily if any of our many moulding profiles will meet their need. This will save on cutter manufacturing costs. It is often the case that there is only a small difference between profiles.

Our web site is a useful means to get information, please do use it especially to see the worktop and door offers which are on stock.

Its a pity English Ash is such a price in the round, the cost to cut, air dry, kiln and if it came to it, to cut into S/E timber is so costly that the Americans have it sewn up. Recently we have been looking into the Hurling Stick market for export to Ireland. Sports Ash logs are better for holding and justifying the price, but the Am ash cannot do the job. Only time will tell for this market. Recently we sold some English Ash, fresh sawn, for the battle re-enactment market which we believe went well. Perhaps this type of warfare is the way forward rather than stealth bomber warfare!

There's always an interesting job around the corner

Unusual recent jobs include: Machined fresh sawn Oak for the HMS Victory bulk head. It’s still a great opportunity to work on this great 1st rate man o' war (83 guns+ which make a ship 1st rate).

From the historic past to current warfare,  we are involved with a company which is working on the latest sonar techniques in identifying fast moving 'shapes' submerged in water.
The signature is complicated if the testing tank environment is too 'smooth' and perfect, imagine singing in the shower compared to a carpet shop, where the sound waves are bouncing off the walls giving the wrong results. So, in comes timber technology to the rescue. By using home grown Douglas Fir sawn into various shapes the absorption of the sound waves can be dealt with to focus in on the mystery object which the scientists want to identify.
Fresh sawn Douglas Fir has a specific gravity greater than 1 it will sink and the species will not decay in a slightly chlorinated water. Two uses of timber in the same industry but approx 220 years apart!!!

Wanted dead or alive - Softwood

What's all this news about shortages of the humble fencing panel and other softwood materials (buy fresh sawn oak now while stocks last!!).

A couple of stories in the daily newspapers have reported on 'Theft of fencing materials’ in the West Midlands, and people selling stolen panels for cash off the back of a lorry!
The shortages of softwood fencing materials have pushed prices up. This is demand-pull inflation where we have seen over a 20% rise in panel prices over the last few months.

Market conditions have seen world wide shortages of saw logs going into the softwood fencing market. At PRO Fencing (our contract fencing company) this has been a very frustrating time. In Latvia the mild winter and spring has meant that the harvest has shown a shortfall in supply. Extraction has been more than difficult in some areas. Sawmills have also started to add value and diversify. Other mills have switched their production to the Far East. In Russia there are new export tariffs on round logs [usually finishing up in Finland] therefore the unit cost of the basic raw material has increased.

Canada is now exporting to the UK in this area for the first time in years due to the price increases which has meant the old CLS softwoods are filling in some gaps.
In context Latvia is selling 27% less to the UK market. This represents 400,000m³ in volume in one season. Latvia is just one of the recent members to have joined the EEC. The EEC has given directives from human rights legislation to inter-European trade without barriers, now it seems some of these former eastern block countries  have the cushion of the EEC once in the system they can get the trade subsidies. Now they are setting their own standards, pushing the Western European market to sit up and take note. Exporting to China and the Far East has given them new markets with richer pickings.

Oak Fencing, as mentioned earlier, needs no treatment, is longer lasting and after all, it is what our Grandfathers used, and its available now!!!

WESTS WOODSHOW 2007

We haven't had chance to mention May’s Wood Show until now. This again was highly successful with similar visitor numbers to 2006 — some 1000+ visitors over 2 days.
We have recognised that we still need to give more variety to our visitors for next year’s show, and we will be concentrating on giving more for the public that are interested in the DIY areas.

Greg Morton turning some Monkey Puzzle wood.

Record Power attended for the first time, they have some great machinery for DIY work at very reasonable prices. You can call us for prices, if we do not have the machine you want on stock, we can normally get it in 3 – 4 days.

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

Other Newsletters