vv oct nov2213sept

The timber is either kiln-dried, air-dried, or
fresh sawn and each item will take different
times from the idea to the completed design.
BearWood can be seen in operation at events
like the Roydon Wood Fair and the New Forest
Show – Alex just loves talking to people about
his work and to spread the word about his
sustainable approach.
Alex initially trained and worked as a tree
surgeon after studying at Sparsholt College. He
developed BearWood as he felt it was sacrilege
to cut up timber for firewood, so he started
doing his own milling and coming up with other
uses for all the timber remaining from felling a
tree. He likes being able to tell customers which
tree every item comes from and the story
behind each piece of timber that led to it being
made into a unique final product. A table for
outside could be prepared quickly, but an
indoor table, for instance, could take a long
time - a rough guide is that it takes about a year
per inch of wood thickness to dry out before it
can be used indoors.
Musical instruments have been made from New
Forest wood through the centuries and local
luthier, Alex Potter, is now building guitars
made entirely from locally sourced timber. In
general, the musical instrument industry is
heavily reliant on tropical or scarce timbers, so
his focus is to encourage musicians to move
away from this to using sustainable,
replaceable, and recycled timber. Working
closely with sawmills and tree surgeons in the
New Forest including Alex at Bear Wood, Alex
can now provide and prepare wood for all the
components of instruments, building to his
customer’s particular specifications.
Alex trained in London, gaining an MA based on
the reconstruction of lost
musical instruments and has
been working for 10 years as
a luthier, the last four in his
New Forest workshop in
Sway. He runs workshops
and can restore, repair, and
maintain instruments while
building guitars for
individual musicians. During lockdown, Alex
worked on a range of ukuleles, which will soon
be on sale in a Bournemouth music shop. He
can be contacted via his website
www.aspotterinstruments.com and is a New
Forest Marque member.
https://forest-to-sea.online
Facebook: forest-to-sea.online
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suzieashworth Twitter: @suzashworth
10 To advertise call 01590 643969/07801 562358 or e-mail info@lymingtondirectory.co.uk