Just over a year since it became fully operational, this is the 1000th load of timber being sent into our new fully automated Timber Treatment Centre which is one of the most advanced of its kind in the UK. Built at a cost of £2.75 million, the new facility not only dramatically increases the efficiency… Read more »
Category: great british timber
The finished colour of treated timber
We’re often asked about the different colours of treated timber and these two packs illustrate things nicely. The posts in the two packs are of the same timber cut the same day but treated two weeks apart. The pack on the left goes a warm honey colour in the sun exactly as it is supposed… Read more »
Within sight of our sawmill and home town
Here’s another sight to lift the spirits. It’s taken at Bury Ditches, home to one of the best-preserved hill forts in the country which dates from around 500BC. It’s located within sight of the mill, deep in the beautiful Shropshire hills. Bishop’s Castle and the Mill are at bottom left, then following the hills round… Read more »
The new chip store is working exactly as it’s designed to
In order to better manage the peaks and troughs in demand for woodchips we’ve constructed a new store here at our mill in Bishop’s Castle. These two pictures show it in operation with a chipper outside working on undersized logs and feeding chips into the store. You can see the operation in a video clip… Read more »
Air dried Larch
Here’s another benefit to increased storage capacity at our mill: 3.6m larch boards kept in the dry ready and waiting for swift delivery. Larch of course is incredibly durable and has become very popular for use as cladding as well as being a traditional material for fencing. Delivered in bundles of 160, there’s plenty more… Read more »
All chip-shape and Bristol fashion
It’s a process of constant improvement here at Ranfords both in how we mill and treat the timber and how we make certain that we get the most value out of every bit iof timber we handle. This newly completed chip store (complete with Great Brtish Timber Yorkshire Boarding) means we can store more material… Read more »
Frosty morning, Bishop’s Castle
We count ourselves most fortunate to live and work in such beautiful surroundings, never more so than on mornings like this. Here in Bishop’s Castle it’s bright and sunny with the air like Champagne. The biomass boiler and kilns in our mill are steaming away and after what at times was a stormy week all… Read more »
Keeping the noise down for the neighbours
Our business is in a small town which has grown and spread in recent years so that houses now stand quite close to the sawmill (which has been here for well over 100 years!) in what once were fields. We are keen to minimise the impact of our activites on our neighbours so, the new… Read more »
It’s that time of year again!
Our home town of Bishop’s Castle is a small and close-knit community in Shropshire close to the border with Wales. It’s the sort of place which still has a kind of unwritten seasonal calendar on which, of course, Christmas features prominently. So, the picture shows one of the first acts in the Town’s preparations as… Read more »
We’re making good progress on the new chip store
We’ve had more than our share of downpours here recently but enough dry weather to be able to crack on with our new chip store. The roof is half on and the wall panels are all in. Next we need to put some Yorkshire Boarding on. Good job we know a good sawmill producing Great… Read more »
Visit by students at Bishop’s Castle Community College
Lightfoot Enterprises and the Community College, Bishop’s Castle (the secondary school which serves the town and surrounding villages) have been working together to introduce pupils to the delights of woodlands. As part of the College’s enrichment programme, a group of Year 7 pupils have been going into the woods to experience the richness & diversity… Read more »
Our war on waste keeps us warm as toast (and kiln dries the timber!)
Outside, it’s a cold and extremely wet November day. Inside, the shed is kept at a fairly constant 20 degrees thanks to the biomass boiler which also fires the kiln into which we’re busy loading another charge. The boiler burns the butt chips which are peeled off the bottom of the log at the very… Read more »
The investment never stops
Those who know Ransfords well will know that we’re always looking for ways to make the business more efficient and more effective. It’s good for our customers and so its good for us too. An investment a few years back enabled us to start producing dry chips from what would otherwise be waste from our… Read more »
Sound solutions in Steel City for Heras
Since its formation in 1952 Heras has grown into Europe’s leading end-to-end supplier of perimeter protection solutions. It operate in 6 countries and employs more than 1200 highly skilled staff serving blue-chip customers across business, community and industry sectors. Their aim is to be recognised as Europe’s premium perimeter protection brand, proven by reliability, commitment… Read more »
Investment continues apace at our Bishop’s Castle sawmill with timber drying timber
We’ve just completed an upgrade on our kiln (pictured here) which included changing the heat source from electricity to biomass. The fuel is woodchips which come from the flare at the base of the logs which is removed at the very start of the milling process to allow the log to go into the mill… Read more »
No post-brexit supply log-jams with Great British Timber from Ransfords
Even now the exact terms on which the UK will be leaving the EU are still unclear, so there’s a great deal of uncertainty about delays to imported supplies of a whole host of goods including timber. Great British Timber from Ransfords is grown here, felled here, and milled here so there will be no… Read more »
The best time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining…
…or so the old saying goes. Easier said than done in recent weeks when most days have brought rain, followed by showers, followed by long periods of drizzle. The good news is though that the job is nearly done: a new roof on the vast building that holds our main sawline with only finishing touches… Read more »
Look what we did
There aren’t many sawmills with the skills and ability let alone the willingness to cut posts like this: 200mm square post with a tenon cut at 100mm square. The mortise is in the support for the roof of a car port so precision was the order of the day. Whilst most of our production is… Read more »
It’s all about teamwork
One of the features of our business is the close relationships we have with other family businesses in the area. One such is David Ford Transport Services who regularly haul logs from the forest to us and finished product from us to the customer. When things get busy we’re not averse to using our Terberg… Read more »
Strength in numbers
Our mill is laid out in such a way that unnecessary movement of product is avoided. The material flows from one stage to another in the most efficient way possible. Of course some movement is unavoidable and, in the end, trailers have to be loaded for the despatch of finished product. These three beauties join… Read more »