Howie Forest Products based in Kirkcudbrightshire is one of the first UK sawmills to achieve accreditation from the Forrestry Stewardship Council, and sources a good deal of material from the local Dalbeattie Forest, which is protected by the FSC.

Producing in the region of 140,000m3 of timber product a year, Howie is an energy-efficient business, but last year the company  opened its second mill, claimed as the largest, most advance UK, purpose-built sawmill on its site.

Previously, when  logs arrived at Howie’s sawmill, each would be measured by hand to determine the number and size of planks that could be produced. This  calculated with the amount of logs in a load, would give an estimate of how much end product the load would yield.

 Now, Keith Ainslie, sales director at Howie says “The 3D scanner builds a three-dimensional view of the total log, so we know how much will be used. This is very useful, as if the log is not  to the specification agreed, we can reject it right there and then, before it is physically cut.

"Also, with curve-sawing technology, logs are now cut following the grain of wood, which means it will straighten when it is dried in the kiln. Before we had this technology we used to lose more than 15% of the logs brought in, because they were curved.”

Neil Cowen, round tree buyer at Howie,  decides which trees come into the company’s sawmill from forests like that in Dalbeattie. “Timber is a carbon-neutral product. The trees being harvested at the moment [in Dalbeattie Forest] will have been there for 30 years, but as soon as they are harvested more will be planted in their place – and so the cycle continues. About 20% of our wood goes to timber pallet manufacturers, and this would be a hard business without the timber pallet industry.”

Source: http://www.freshinfo.com
Web:http://www.howieforwood.co.uk