Fall Family Festival

It was an overcast and somewhat cool day, but we still had a great turnout in Portlandville for our annual open house.

As in previous years, the main event was the tours of our plant. Visitors were taken through each step of our manufacturing process to learn how our solid wood materials are made -- from bringing logs to our facility to milling lumber into finished materials. The newest feature of the tour was our double-cut band head saw. After months of installation and problem-solving, we were proud to show off this latest improvement, which shows we’re always moving forward and thinking of the future.

Our newly formatted woodworking event for this year was a huge success. Bidders in a silent auction raised more than $1,800 to benefit the Ronald McDonald House of Albany and Springbrook of Oneonta. Habitat for Humanity who provided refreshments for the day – the hot coffee was particularly welcome – raised money for its ongoing projects.

CNC router demonstrations by Dan West of West WoodWorks provided many interested learners a great look into the functioning of CNC technology. Many attendees even bought signs of their own created by Dan that day, and signed up for his woodworking classes.

And we don’t think we’ve ever made so many toy cars for kids.

We at Wightman Specialty Woods enjoyed spending the day with you, and we look forward to another successful event in 2010. If you missed our event and are interested in taking a tour of our facility, feel free to stop in any day, or you may always take a virtual tour.