W.L.West & Sons launch new website and provide update on after the fire
WEBSITE
Regular comments were that our old website had a lot of information but looked old fashioned. Well, here is the new one wlwest.co.uk designed by Strawberry Soup, we hope you will find it enjoyable and informative.
FIRE
Well..... here's the update after the fire. We are very much still here.
Early in November 2018 we suffered a serious fire. We were on scene shortly after the Petworth Fire Appliance, who was first to attend, quickly followed by the Midhurst appliance and 4 others.
West Sussex Fire & Rescue crews worked very hard and quickly to douse the flames and prevent further spread.
Steel and flint in timber can often cause problems and this is what we think happened. The result was a spark travelling through the dust extraction system, which started smouldering and got slowly worse during the evening until it spread to the main sawmill when the alarms went off.
EXTRACTION
Our whole extraction plant was lost, resulting in us not being able to operate our workshop machines for 3 weeks.
Its great to have good suppliers, and we have in the Woodwork Dust Control Company Ltd, who were on site the day after the fire and helped us to start a recovery plan.
We initially installed temporary extraction in the workshop and sawmill, eleven bag units were installed, three on one machine alone! This got us back up and running, if a little dusty.
WDCC then designed two complete new systems one for the workshop, our key area, and one for the sawmill. As you can imagine this is a big system, and it was finally commissioned in March 2019.
Part of the building was badly damaged, and this is still under repair. Once this is complete, we will be able to install phase two of the extraction.
NEW SAWMILL
Repair of the Stenner log sawmill was not possible due to its age, so in April we flew to Ljubliana in Slovenia to visit Mebor. They gave us a great reception, and the visit resulted in us placing an order for a new sawmill.
We selected their biggest horizontal mill, the HTZ 1400 Extreme 20 to meet our requirements.
With an 8m bed and the ability to cut up to 1.9m in diameter, it is a big machine and we are looking forward to it being installed. Hopefully we will see that in December or January 2020.
FELDER CNC & SPRAY FACILITY
August 2018 saw a new 5 Axis CNC, Edgebander and heated press, all from as Austrian company - Felder being installed.
CNC facility allows us to machine complex shapes in timber. If you have something you need machined, give our team a call, they will be able to help you.
Another new facility is our spray workshop, which has been installed to finish products. This is a great facility and we are getting some excellent results.