Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Question on Fuming
Barry Irby
I built My Son and DIL a dining table of air dried white oak. And fumed it with ammonia. As discussed before, there are/were some bugs in the wood and now I am building chairs to match the table. Before I assemble them I could put some the smaller pieces in the oven and heat them above one hundred forty degrees.
I am wondering if the ammonia will kill the bugs, if any.
Re: Question on Fuming
JL
Yes. It will kill above 5,000 ppm or so. 500 ppm is considered to be immediately dangerous to life and health for people. It all depends on how concentrated your solution happens to be. If you are using blueprint ammonia, it may be concentrated enough to have a lethal dose for the bugs.
different life stages of the bugs is the issue
Dick Coers
How deep do the fumes go into the wood? With powder post beetles, the hard stage to kill is the eggs. I'd assume that ammonia is bad for humans because of inhalation. I think you would have to have liquid contact to kill an egg. Just guessing though.
Re: Question on Fuming
Keith Newton
Barry, I don’t think you have to worry about the bugs being in your heartwood, so just don’t use any sapwood.