Wormholes in oak - ignore at my own risk?

R

Rick Yochim

Well-known member
I am making a set of stackable chests out of red oak from a tree I took down about 5 years ago. I milled and stickered the wood immediatly and am pleased enough with the moisture content in the wood to get started.

But I am noticing a fair amount of worm in some of the stock.  From a show perspective this will not present a problem as I am putting down a dark brown dye stain under garnet shellac (thus muting a lot of the drama that quarter sawn gives you, but it's what they want) so the holes are easily filled and hidden.

But do those holes indicate that I might still have live worm in there or have the little fellows gone off to worm heaven? In which case I have nothing to worry about.

I am early enough in the process that I can deal with the possibility of live worm now if I need to. Do I need to?

If yes, what's a good way to proceed?

Thanks.       
 
Take the wood to a kiln right now and tell them you want to kill and infestation. They won't dry it but they will be able to heat it enough to kill the bugs. Usually the damage is much worse when you start planing. Hopefully the infestation wasn't to bad and you'll be able to save the wood.
 
I wonder if vacuum bagging it would kill the beasts? They may explode in the vacuum, I haven't tried it so we are in the realm of experimentation there. They may be gone already but that wouldn't be a safe bet. In some cases if you set the wood aside you can come back and see little piles of dust around the holes. If you plane the wood off the pieces can be fairly well hollowed out with just tiny holes on the surface. Plane a very holey piece down and see if anybody is home and what the subsurface damage looks like.
 
Jeff, Tim, and Mike,

Thanks for the wisdom and suggestions.

There's a kiln nearby that charges, if memory serves, $45.00 a load for a basic drying out down to an 8-10% moisture content, so that would probably do it. (Even though I'm not really concerned about reducing the emc any further as it's dry and stable now.)

That cost certainly trumps the cost I would see if I were to go out and buy a bunch of 5/4 and 8/4 oak, as inexpensive and plentiful as oak is. Culling through and checking my selected stock before I wrote my original post, I saw that about 80% of it has some degree of *holification*. I suspect the infestation is powder post beetle but what the wee beasties are, or were, really isn't as relevant as what I do about the problem so I can use the wood.

Bottomline: I don't think I'll toss the wood into the burn pile. A kiln treatment coupled with a solid and reasonably thick surface coat on all surfaces  - probably my finish shellac - seems like the best peace of mind insurance I'll be able to get.

Thanks again for the help.   
 
Rick,
Be sure the wood beneath the surface is sound. Tiny holes in the surface can be large tunnels just below the surface and you won't be able to use the material, so drying might kill the bugs but not save the lumber. Since it is fairly dry already you might want to plane it down hit or miss before you take it to the kiln to be sure the material is usable.
Mike
 
Thanks Mike, good advice.

All of it is already down to it's dimensional size with just a finish planing/scraping needed. That's how I was able to notice the holes in the first place as in it's rough sawn condition with the usual dirt and sawdust from the milling (though undercover, all my stickered lumber is outside) evidence of the infestation was kind of masked. That said I did cull out a couple of pieces as really questionable.



 
Rick,

Years ago, I had a red oak log milled and I stickered it in a friend's barn to air dry.  10 years later, I had to get it out due to his selling the property.  There was evidence of powderpost infestation ( fine piles of dust under a few boards).  Upon planing, I noticed that the bugs only seemed to attack the sapwood of the oak.  Is that your experience?

Needless to say, none of the bug holed pieces stayed in the shop!
 
Jeff,

No, from the evidence I've seen in my stuff they've been pretty indiscriminate.

I'd be tempted to make some lame joke here about the eating habits of bugs and so on but I'm a little too bothered by the damage they've caused in some otherwise good quater sawn oak for any yucks at this point.   
 
Having seen two houses destroyed by powder post beetles I will say with conviction it is something to take very seriously. You might ask an exterminator what he would charge to put a plastic tent over the whole stack of wood and fumigate it. Or if it is a small stack do what Jeff Headley recommended - put it a house being fumigated.
 
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