W.L. West & Sons Ltd.
Timber Talks - June 2009

Good Training - The Future

About 9 years ago we started sponsoring the Furniture Making area of the Construction department at Chichester College. This led us to also sponsor an annual prize for this department, and the W.L.West & Sons Ltd Best Furniture newcomer trophy was born.

Some of the winners of this prize have gone on to be very capable craftsmen. About three years ago a young man called Luke Griffiths won the prize. He went onto to win the Furniture making section at the UK Skillbuild competition in Leeds in September 2008. That was a huge accolade for Luke, but also enabled him to be considered for the International WorldSkills competition being held this September in Calgary, Canada.

Well, after many training sessions Luke has been successful and will be winging his way to Canada in September this year. We wish him all the very best and hope he achieves the top awards in the competition. This clearly speaks volumes for the Furniture section in Chichester College, and we are very pleased to be working with them on their training. Their tutors seem to have endless enthusiasm which is clearly being transferred to the students.

Current Trading

What’s June been like for you?
The feed back we have had is still mixed, however most pundits think it cannot get any worse, are we really at the bottom now?

For us, we have had good days, average days and poor trading days. No real pattern, but we are keen to respond to any chance of an order. With margins at an all time low it is important to try to keep out of the mud! We have noticed competitors shipping lower grades to reduce their buying prices but this can lead to rejection and other problems. In fact, it can be a real false economy, if you are a very large timber user there may be a point in doing this. But if you are a small to medium size company then the right material is only a small % of the costs which go to make the project. Selection is very important, control of the waste factors is key.

Gerard and Dave recently returned from an investigative trip to Italy, looking at other square edge Euro oak Sawmillers and they reported back the Euro Fas [lower than a Euro prime] is selling more because of price but this comes with a ‘Health Warning’ i.e. much increased sap content and less timber parallel sawn after drying.
We are still buying super prime which is the best we can get because, as the orders are smaller in volume than from a year ago, the timber going out needs to ‘Stay out’ ………. Remember however this is a natural product !!!

Kiln Dry or Air Dry - is it merging?

Air drying is/has become a bit of a ‘Black Art’. The new TRADA guidance state on Bills of Qty 16%+ - 2%. Recently we were putting together a load of 27mm T/T air dried Elm for kilning and the moisture content varied from 14% - 22%, but the average after approx 1 year was 16%. Remembering back to the 1980’s the M/C used to average approx 18%! That’s Global warming for you.

The fact is that with such diverse moisture contents in air drying, part kilning is necessary to even out the extremes. This ensures greater stability in using KD timber externally, it has a much better chance of reacting to the seasons. Having this flexibility here has been a great asset. But beware, the natural use of timber in external applications is changing.

Please note
Any timber exposed to direct sunlight will tend to cause the face to air check, this is where the face of the timber will be in tension as the surface is becoming drier than the timber below the surface. This is natural, there is little one can do about it and external joinery will do this. In softwoods like Douglas Fir, this is made much worse due to the growth ring being so pronounced. This will affect temperate hardwoods and softwoods more so than Tropical timbers, in passing when it rains they tend to  close up somewhat!

Stock News

Joinery grade softwood is becoming scarce. Two of the largest importer/suppliers have told us that prices are rising. One of them is not opening any new A/C’s as they are ‘Rationing timber’. This has been caused as pulp mills are closed. The pulp industries take approx 80% of lumber, with the residual 20% going to joinery timber. If the global demand for paper reduces, saw logs are not cut. Supply shortages mean that the £m³ is rising by approx 15/20% per month. The real crisis will come in September/October, our trades two busiest months.
Our current stock is OK, but replacing the real plum sizes is proving difficult. We still have some redwood 225mm but it is worthy to note that stock investment here would be a good idea.
A while ago we told you about the strikes in Canada, these were Nov 2007 which went thorough till Feb/March 2008. There are still over 7000 people out of work in BC alone. The lack of demand for pulp has spread to Canada where only 5% of the 2 Clear and Better timber reaches the UK for top clear grades. Problems in the softwood trade are immense.

Softwood for us has been a very positive move, we have had a couple of hitches in undersize 38mm but this has been sorted, our suppliers are very professional and are very inclusive with regard to training and offering good feedback. Who would have thought that the softwood industries are facing a crisis in this Global market.

 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