Dudmaston Sawmill ...
This is the sawmill. It's run by our good friend Chris Poole-Gleed, who does a fantastic job of importing strange timbers from all over the world, finding huge oak logs by the dozen, and cutting and milling truckloads of green oak for our timber framing projects. We thought it would be good to give you a bit of insight as to just what happens to an oak tree before it gets made into part of your home. If you are looking to buy oak, of any sort, please call us - we'll be happy to supply if we can..
When an oak tree is felled, there is no guarantee that the wood in that tree will end up as part of your house. It's quite possible that something happened to the tree, and it may have rotted down the middle, or cracked and stressed so the timber splits easily - either way, there's a good chance it'll end up as fence posts, or worse, firewood. We had one piece of timber which was a beatiful chunk of 'boxed heart' - the centre of the tree - the most expensive 'cut' as it were, which is traditionally used as corner posts in buildings. The tree had lain in the yard for nearly three years, and was then cut in the mill. After being loaded onto the trailer and taken to site, it had bent almost a foot out of line - like a banana. Afterwards, Chris explained to us that it is possible that the tree had grown on a steep slope - and in doing so, there was an inherent stress in the timber which when released by milling, allowed it to bend back.
Selecting timber is an expert process - it's more of an art, a way of life. Chris listens to our orders - he runs through the timber lists looking for the qualities, the different uses - braces, corner posts, decorative panels, and selects appropriate timber for the use. This process is broadly known as grading. You can't have great big knots in something that is going to take a lot of strain sideways - it'll just bend and snap - but if you want character oak in a non-stress situation, knots look beautiful, and we go looking for as many knots as we can find.
The timber from here is not only rough sawn for building use - we machine oak into planks for making doors - and for joinery - finishing work on the homes we work with.
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And this is where it all goes...
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