wormy wood

Kindling 

Re: wormy wood

Barry Irby

I have made a number of things from wormy wood.

Either left as is or filled with epoxy.

Depends on how bad (or good) the infestation is.

Re: wormy wood

Guy Boucher

Thanks

Looks like I will have make something I can paint! UG.... I hope not all the wood has it!

Re: wormy wood

Don Stephan

Unless the wood is treated somehow, there may still be larvae in the wood. Make a piece, take it into a home or business, and there is a chance of introducing the insects to the surrounding building.

Re: wormy wood

JL

If you have an active infestation and see "sawdust" on the surface or below the board stacks, burn or dispose of the wood.

If the wood is weakened, dispose of the wood.

That being said, I have made a few things out of wormy (ambrosia) soft maple.

I have make a few other things out of less damaged wormy wood.

There are ways of killing the bugs.

Re: wormy wood

John Foster

Look at my "crib" post in the weekend accomplishments thread that was started on August 8th. That was made with spalted elm, also lots of worm tracks that were left "as is"

Re: wormy wood

Yonak

As JL says, some make rustic things out of ambrosia maple and some people go nuts over it, for some reason.

Hand mirrors but then im biased

John C Lucas

You can leave the trails as is. You can fill with colored.epoxy. Ive sold quite a few like this over the years.

Re: wormy wood

Guy

Thanks all

I think the infestation is long gone. I just have the effect of it. No need

to make kindling!!! Smile

I’ll try a few of the suggestions and see how I make out. Got to be a market

Guy

"I think the infestation is long gone" famous last

Dick Coers

Famous last words. I had to clean out my old stock from my Mom's shed when she moved to assisted living. Some of that stock was 20 years old. I stacked it under tin next to my garage and saw new dust in a couple of days of moving it. Only heat over 135 degrees kill the larvae.

Guessing they are gone. *LINK*

Keith Newton

You may be right, but you might be wrong as to whether they are still present.

The worms as you refer to them, is the larva stage of beetles, loosely called Powder-post beetles. Some only infest the wet wood before it dries after sawing. However, there are others that will come in and lay their eggs on any rough sawn wood that hasn't been chemically treated or has natural insect resistance. So a wood like maple or the sapwood of any species should be suspect. The first instar after the eggs hatch may be so small that you wouldn't see them if you planed one in half as you dressed the lumber.

If you do small projects like John Lucas suggest, you can zap them in the microwave easily. However, if you want to be sure, here is a link to a method that is cheap and easy to treat the whole stack.


http://www.woodcentral.com/cgi-bin/readarticle.pl?dir=newarticles&file=articles_946.shtml