A new united force

I spent some of my Easter this year digging post holes in the garden for a new run of closeboard panel fencing. It's a difficult task at the best of times, made even harder by the need to dig through more than 1ft of concrete. The steady thunk of my 17lb digging bar hitting the concrete left me nursing copious blister wounds and must have been lovely for the neighbours. One neighbour took pity and gave me a glass of beer for my troubles.

I can only hope that once the fence is up, it stays up. This wasn't the case three years ago when I became a statistic in the early timber fence post failure debate. One of the posts only lasted about two years before rotting and falling over. A contact of mine analysed the post and confirmed poor treatment penetration. The post supplier told me the new forms of treatment weren't as good as the old CCA and it was recommending customers used the Postsaver bitumen sleeve in addition to the treatment. Of course, it's not as simple as that and there are actually many reasons why fence posts may fail early. The supplier then said I could use some creosote. Mmm. Needless to say this time around I used a different supplier.

In TTJ this month, we give special space to previewing the Ligna world fair for the forestry and timber industries. If you're a company interested in investing in machinery this is definitely the place to go. Ingo Bette of the woodworking technology division of the German Engineering Association told us the show was now as big as the next five biggest shows put together. "Mega-trend" features will include timber construction sector production technology, processing of mixed materials and Industrie 4.0 - the next stage in digital data integration between machines, software and operators. Be prepared to hear a lot more about Industrie 4.0 in the years ahead, which is why interviewed Siemens on this subject in our February issue. If you are coming to Ligna, don't forget a good pair of walking shows!

Also this month we give extended coverage to the panel products sector, looking in more detail at the National Measurement Office investigation into Chinese plywood, modified wood panels and formwork panel products. Many thanks to Mike Perry of Standon Ltd for pressing the case for giving formwork panels more coverage.

By the time the next TTJ comes out we may already have a new government. At the time of writing the odds looked to favour a hung parliament again. But politics is a strange game and it's a dangerous business trying to second-guess the voting public. Whoever ends up holding the reigns of power after May 7, let's hope it will be a strong, stable government and that the pre-election trade hesitancy, which so often accompanies elections, will start to fade away.

Meanwhile, we're delighted to announce that TTJ has signed to become official media partner for Timber Expo, which is now part of UK Construction Week.