Just to follow up after my first visit;
Firstly; Trying to email the 'friends' didn't work to find out what might be available, I just got a 'can't contact them' type reply from the Westonbirt web site. From what I found out talking to the volunteers on site it wouldn't have been much use anyway.
As a member of the RHS I got on site free and as we were only going to the wood sale the staff on the main gate didn't charge for my wife either. I guess on busier days that might be different, but a wet morning in December isn't their busiest hour.
It's a somewhat disorganised operation. AndyT's photograph capture the whole operation pretty well. labels are pretty much non-existent, so if you don't know your timber well you'll have to rely on the volunteers for information.
The volunteers are helpful, enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Their only difficulty seems to be that they don't always know what has been felled or pruned and left for them by the arboretum. There are some smaller bits of log, the sort of small diameter stuff for turning, that they can only guess at.
Smaller diameter wood is in sensible lengths that will be useful for turners.
Most of the bigger logs seems to be converted to about an inch and half thickness. OK for furniture makers, but maybe a bit thin for turners. Just about everything is in waney edged boards about 7 to 8 feet long. The volunteers are happy to cut these down to length to fit into cars etc, but it might be prudent to bring your own saw. All the sawing is done by hand, so one needs to carefully consider where to cut to minimise waste.
Moisture content is likely to be very variable. Some timber is newly cut and totally green and positively wet to the touch, some has been in stick for some time (my purchases were at about 20%). Again the volunteers have a good knowledge of how long boards have been around and how dry they might be.
On Sunday they were receiving a new kiln, so they may be able to offer some kilned timber sometime next year, but given the open air storage I doubt they'll ever be able to offer really 'modern house ready' dry timber.
Prices; These seem pretty much made up on the spot and subject to reasonable barter, cash or cheque only. I bought some inch and half thick Ash that worked out at about £27 cubic foot, not a total bargain, but maybe 20-25% off merchant prices. Fair and all to a good cause.
The boards I bought to seem to be good quality though.
If you're the sort of person who wants to buy ready to use timber in nice ready prepared sizes, it's probably not the place for you.
If you're used to buying and handling waney edged air dried timber, you'll be at your ease.
If you'd like to try buying waney edge, rough timber for the first time, it might be the perfect place as there's no commercial pressure and the volunteers all know their stuff and are probably particularly aware of the difficulty of buying wood like this for the first time and very helpful.
Overall I enjoyed my visit and am very happy with the wood I bought. It's a shame the weather was so dire on Sunday as it would have been nice to have spent longer browsing through the piles, but right now I haven't much space to buy more timber to dry, but I'll be back there ;-)
