WoodFest at Westonbirt Arboretum England

Last weekend was the annual Woodfest at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire, England. I went along with a few friends and bought some English Elm in the wood sale. One thing I thought you may be interested in was a demonstration of a steam driven "tablesaw". This thing was huge and was probably used to threaten James Bond in a movie. "I expect you to die Mr Bond"

This thing was very impressive and had an enormous blade that cut through lumber like a hot knife through butter. In fact the tree trunk shown in the picture was completed end to end in about 10 seconds. It was about 12 feet long and the board was about 12" deep. The blade still had plenty of capacity and had a riving knife.
When on load the drive belt was jumping about considerably but was in no danger of falling off. One thing did worry me though was the blade was constantly turning when the men were turning the log and manipulating it for the next cut. The spectators were behind metal fencing about 20 feet away.

The full rig

The source of all the power

This is YA509 a Burrell traction engine called Diamond Queen. Here is some more info

That blade is still turning

The first cut

Final chat before the next cut

Turning the log

Here we go again

The spotter had a physical job

 Chainsaw sculptures

There was also a chainsaw sculpture event to with a theme to create chairs for gardens in several schools around the area. These people certainly knew how to use their tools and I also saw Arbotech cutters on angle grinders.

The Owl and the Pussycat

This was the start of Grommit

Another magnificent sculpture in the making

More work on chairs.

You could buy timber in the wood sale.
Just need to make sure you let it dry
in your shop as this was green stuff.