Visit to West's Wood Fair 2018

As we were checking our Instagram feed on Saturday  English Woodland Timber had uploaded a very inviting post about how wonderful West's Wood Fair is that they are currently exhibiting at, so we decided to spend our Sunday going to the fair for the first time so here we go as Abdollah writes:

I was glad to meet the Northwood Forestry crew very close to the entrance and as we have been working with them in the past few years it was great to catch up and chat about their reliable ways of drying timber and how sustainable their source of wood is. 

Further up there were some unique individual wood with striking grains drawing my attention towards them which turned out to be the English Woodlands Timber, highly knowledgable crew with a large selection of timbers to choose from, looking forward to viewing their show room and choose some English Ash. 

In the middle of the exhibition there was a large white tent which I found much more exciting from the inside, there where three stands that caught my eye. First stand I met the wood carver Roy Coltherd who was already making his orders at the stand delicately with his chisel following the eye cherishing drawing of his onto the mahogany, he was booked up until August. Here are his details if you wish to contact him 0771965123.

The second stand in the tent belonged to Forest of Bere Woodturners Association. I met up with the Chairman John Wyatt who explained how we can join their monthly meetings and exciting conversations about woodturning, so if you like to join their club here is their website with plenty of useful information.   

It did not take long for me to recognise the man that i had been reading and researching about in the past few weeks JAMES MARSELL. The Author and craftsman was exhibiting at the show humbly, so i spent a long time at his stand making sure i make the most out of the time i had with this wonderful craftsman and had the pleasure to sit on his new designed and built chair which he had painted in black, clever craftsmanship and highly proportional, i could visualise that chair almost in any house from a small modern apartment to a country cottage kitchen or a luxury house by the warm and cosy fireplace, he runs chair making courses in 2 to 5 days long which you can read up about on his website, here https://thewindsorworkshop.co.uk/

Windsor Chair

Working my way out of the tent and could not resist the shining tools from far away, the business model was even shinier than the gorgeous tool ,re storing the used english made hand tools! The man behind the idea was called Ian Swain, he can tell you about the story of every tool, he re makes the handles for the tools and sharpens the blades and does anything necessary to bring it back to life as new but this time with way more character, i really wish the best for Ian as we need more businesses approaching the industry this way. He also has a website which you can click on to right here http://www.theluddite.com