Time for another update ...

... on life in our corner of Hampshire. For new readers and to remind regulars , if you want to make contact you will be dealing with either myself Paul, who writes the newsletter and deals with e mail and website enquiries or Brian who can be spoken to on the phone and will put together orders. I live on the outskirts of London and come down once or twice a week for fresh air and to get in Brian’s way and break things. Brian lives near the woods and is the brains of the organization. The rest of the workforce consists of Harold who at 80 and a bit is fitter than me half his age. Choice is yours whether to deal with the townie or the country bumpkin.

You will have gathered from the rest of the website that we are very small and if huge stocks, slick, professional service and only the finest hardwoods are what you need this probably won’t be the place for you. Looking at other suppliers we are definitely cheap and Brian is mostly cheerful.

 Whilst we do postal orders up to 30kg via Parcel Force and have sent 100’s of parcels of blanks over the past 20 years we are ideal for turners and cabinet makers who typically spend £50 and are able to come to The Kiln or our woods and select what they need themselves. Since getting involved in wood after the death of my father who ran it as a retirement project for 15 years until his death in December .98, almost all my knowledge has come from customers old and new who have years of experience and sound advice to offer... I don’t always take it!

Summer brought better weather ...

... and Brian back to top form so we have planked more wood and managed to pick up some quality trees at good prices . Stocks are on the up! 

May was a month where we felled and planked immediately a couple of Beech trees that should keep us going for the next twelve months. We decided to slab the Beech from my brother in laws farm and have bunged that in the undergrowth to spalt over next year or so. Well, it will spalt if it stays there long enough we have already sold a couple of slabs to some turners who couldn’t wait. 

June was a series of sunny Tuesdays where we divided the day into a couple of hours sawing and the rest woods maintenance. Mowing the rides and thinning Ash saplings, so that we can get the forestry man to inspect and give us a grant. It also makes the whole place look better.

We have been getting quite a few trees ...

... from a local tree surgeon called Irwin. He is the son of a chap the old man bought a bit from but sadly died of cancer in my first year of dabbling with the wood business. Irwin is very laid back and doesn’t demand a lot for his trees but it has to be said most of them are such big buggers that we have to use the saw mill which puts around £3-4 on the price of a cube of wood. A lump of sycamore he got us in June was around 4’x 4’. Lucky for us he got it to the saw mill, unluckily for the saw mill chap Mark it was a bit big even for him.

Over the summer I would occasionally call at saw mill and there was the sycamore trunk huge and uncut. "I keep looking at it", Mark told me, "and do something else!  It’s bound to knacker my JCB". Eventually in September he could stand it no longer and managed after several costly hours to get it on the saw and get a few slices off it.

The next problem which neither of us had anticipated was a large amount of metal in the middle probably dating back 30-40 years. The tree has come from a large garden and at some stage someone had put barbed wire or similar on it and as it grew it was absorbed into the bark. Not the best buy of the year but occasionally you have to buy what is going.

Anyone who has had trees felled ...

... or trimmed will know what an expensive business it is. You really have to use fully insured and qualified people as it isn’t funny when a tree lands on your house- bit more amusing when it’s your neighbour’s car. Anyone in the Hampshire area should use Irwin, he has all the gear including a rather nifty stump grinding machine and is not expensive when you compare him to some of the big outfits.

Having a contact like Irwin is probably more vital to a small business than regular customers as obtaining cheap saleable timber means we can sell it cheaper than the big boys and everyone is happy.

 It was Irwin who put us on to a mate of his called Jamie who was doing a big job in Basingstoke where a number of Oaks had to be felled on the site of a new Industrial Estate. I wasn’t particularly keen as I had just bought quite a few trees that still needed to be planked and was spending more than I was selling. I did divert to the site on my way down the M3 one sunny day and met Jamie. Irwin was about 40 foot up a tree swinging on a rope with his chainsaw whilst Jamie pointed out the trees.

The beauty of them apart from the price that he kindly let me steal them from him for was the size which was firstly not too big and secondly fitted on our saw. I arranged for them to be cut into six foot lengths and for Irwin to deliver them to the edge of the woods which again saves us a lot of time and money making several trips to Basingstoke with our little trailer 

Planking a sensible sized trunk is a joy. If too big, turning them is back breaking and if too short they don’t fit on the saw bed and have to be wedged underneath and on the sides and a decent straight cut is almost impossible. With a good straight trunk the planks come off the saw quicker than I can stack them, which gives Brian malicious pleasure watching me run to keep up with him.

In September Brian relocated from Stoke ...

... to the bigger town of Whitchurch. From a wood point of view it is business as usual although the Kiln answerphone won’t always be checked on a daily basis. We usually encourage people to try Brian at home around 6pm if they want to speak to a human. His new number is 01256 896134.

As stocks have grown expanding the sheds is becoming urgent. The blacksmith who has quoted for a 15’ square extension has so far produced lots of encouraging noises and no action. The shed where the tractor lives is a bit tight- too tight for me as I usually hit the post when putting it away and the time has come to rebuild.

We were undecided whether to buy some decent lengths of 4x 2 to do the job or to make do with bits of larch we have kicking round. The decision was made when Brian after a bit of negotiating managed to get hold of half a dozen old telegraph poles. These are ideal for gate posts and to hold the doors of the saw shed. To make a hole deep enough for them we borrowed a hole digger that works off the PTO at the back of the tractor.

The gods smiled on us the day ...

... of the rebuild. It was warm and sunny which as it was nearly October was a right result. By late afternoon tractor and Saw shed were rebuilt and whilst no work of art are a huge improvement and mostly importantly unlikely to fall down for a while.

We don’t get much call for Lime, in fact I think we only have one regular customer. This chap who I believe uses it for carving comes every year in June or July and buys three or four cubic foot. He comes from Buckinghamshire and makes a day of it with wife and friends and visits a local Pub for lunch. The stock he has been buying were slabs that the old man must have sawn at least five years ago.

 This year saw us wave bye bye to the last of it which is probably just as well as it was starting to go wormy. Before I could give much thought to getting more Brian had obtained half a dozen trunks for virtually nothing and we now have enough for this chap for the next twenty years... stop press have found someone else who carves so might have to restock in 5 years.

As summer gave way to autumn ...

... sales shot up. I think a lot of people leave the woodworking during the summer with gardening and holidays not to mention workshops being a bit hot and thoughts don’t turn to stocking up until September. Whilst we need to sell to survive a lot of postal orders brings the pains on a bit as each order has to be parceled up and lugged to grumpy Bill at the Post Office. It also takes up time and as we only work on the wood a day or two a week it gets in the way of the days planned projects, still shouldn’t grumble. 

Having sorted out the saw shed ...

... the other job that had been put off was to make a small wooden shelter similar to country bus stops. My old mum who had returned to Ireland following 50 years in England and the death of my father was diagnosed as being terminally ill. I thought a shelter, in a quiet spot that could house a bench would make a fitting memorial.

As always there were other more urgent matters so the project didn’t progress. Over three days with the help of Brian an old friend John put together a rather solid structure that would grace any country bus route. After several months in the planning and making on a beautiful October day were we finishing it off when the call came on my mobile that my mum had died.

As winter approaches again and ...

... the end of the third year of my dabbling with the business we are in much the same position as the last two. A bit has been achieved but much more needs to be done including felling some trees, yet more maintenance- especially The Kiln and of course planking a slabbing some stock... still it keeps us busy.

Copyright Goulden Management Limited 2001