GOODEARL-RISBORO' LTD

The story of a Buckinghamshire furniture company
From its beginnings in 1870 until it closure in 2001
and its rebirth as whiteleaf ltd


  The Sawmill at Work: Kiln Drying.

The Company no longer offers this service





The timber used in the furniture that the Company makes is kiln dried to a moisture content of 10%. In this state, under normal room conditions, it does not dry any more and so remains stable.


After a log has been cut into planks on the Bandmill, it is stacked, with thin strips between each board. It remains outside in the drying field for about 9 to 12 months, and gradually looses around 60% of its moisture content.

Timber in stick
However it will not reach its required dryness unaided, and the 'sets' of planks are loaded by mobile crane onto bogies and pushed into one of the kilns. Mobile Crane
The moisture is extracted from the timber by heating the kiln. Large fans force air through the stack. Degrade to the wood is avoided by carefully controlling the rate of drying.

This is achieved by adjusting the humidity in the kiln as the timber dries. The desired settings are produced by the use of live steam and air vents in the kiln's roof. Both are under continuous automatic control.

The kilns
In 1955 the first two brick kilns, with an oil fired boiler, were built at the edge of the property adjoining the railway. These were supplied by Messrs G.F.Wells of Sheffield. Each kiln was 30ft long. Above a false ceiling over the kiln chamber two 6ft fans circulated the air, changing direction every 2 hours. Two more Wells kilns were added in 1959. kiln plan
In 1966 a 40 ft aluminium kiln from Sidney Cubbage Ltd, High Wycombe, was added along side the four brick ones. It had automatic control of the temperature and humitity. Another Cubbage kiln, fifty feet long, was built next to it in 1971 and the first one extended to 50 ft in 1973.

The kilns were converted, in 1975, to use steam produced by burning wood waste in the new boiler plant. The Wells kilns were also fitted with automatic controls. The now disused oil boiler room was later converted into a de-humidifier kiln.

The timber loads for kilning were pushed onto the transfer track, the metal carriage that ran on the rails in front of the kilns. When the track was opposite the empty kiln the loads were pushed in. A job greeted with no particular enthusiasm by several generations of sawmill workers.

Kilns

The Sawmill at work: Steam Bending

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