Thread: Pin/Borer Holes in High Feature Vic Ash

Welcome to the Forum.
Feature Grade also known as Rustic is the lower of the visual graded decorative timbers. High Feature Grade includes even more features. These features include sap vanes, sap pockets, knots etc. Bug holes and trails in the timber are also considered a feature. What you don't want is the actual bugs! These are a defect not a feature! If there is any sign of wood dust on the surface of the timber it indicates borer activity. If the dust feels smooth when rubbed between finger and thumb it is usually Lyctus borer. If it has a course or gritty feel it's probably Furniture Beetle or another member of the Anobiid family.

What rusty says - how many veins & holes you accept is your personal choice, but an active infestation is the last thing you want!

If you are worried, contact the maker & ask if the wood is air-dried or kilned - If it was kilned and reconditioned at suitable temperatures, there shouldn't be any critters left alive in there. If you see any fresh frass (wood dust from the borer's exit holes), then you do have something to worry about.

Treating small items for borers is fairly easy, not sure how I'd go about treating a full-sized buffet, though..

Cheers,

Freeze it. Only if there is sign of continued borer activity.

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I really appreciate it 😀

I couldn't figure out how to attach the photo's in my original post but have attached them below (hopefully it works).

As you'll see from the photo's it looks like the holes are mainly contained to the one plank of wood along the top of the buffet.
I just thought it was strange and thought if it's one plank then they could've finished it off with a nicer plank with features that match the rest of the buffet (as none of the other planks seem to have the holes.

Timber is a natural product and always contains various inclusions - branches, knots, twigs, disease, damage.

One normally picks boards that fit the price consumers are prepared to accept.

Ordinary, non-selected timber is cheap. The further one picks through the piles to get closer to a point of perfection (i.e. nothing but straight grain) dwindles the available boards and rapidly drives the price upwards.

Your sideboard being labelled "featured" isn't a specific designation. Its an arbitrary aesthetic, where some might call it rustic, or weathered.

Ive made pieces where clients want something to look as if its had 200 years work in a household kitchen. It was flogged with a length of heavy chain and the equivalent of a "baseball bat with nails through it". It wasn't my first choice of finish, but they loved it.

Your piece is perfectly acceptable and has no living beasties.

I work with timber from Thors Hammer here in Canberra and its second-hand. Being reclaimed timber, one gets-what-they-gets - its it highly featured, filled nail holes and all, and the people who want it absolutely love it.

Perhaps you can reveal the maker and price?

....

edit - if the gum lines and holes bother you, they can be easily filled. The very easiest (DIY) is to simply use a hot glue gun with a black stick! Here is a video: How to Fill Wood with a Hot Glue Gun and one using epoxy: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cpy6KOth1S6/

When it comes to such features, to my mind it should still meet some minimum aesthetic.

If the whole top or a significant proportion of the boards used were pin-holed to saimilar degree then that's fair enough, if that's your style.

But so many pin-holes in a single board on what is probably the most viewed surface of a sideboard says (to me) "I was too lazy/cheap to pick another board." (Actually it screams it at me at the top of it's lungs.)

There are many schools of thought when it comes to using "natural feature grade" wood. There are those as loves it & those as detests it, & every shade in between. It's possible the maker actually placed the boards like that deliberately, to add to the randomness. Normally, I would toss boards with gum veins & multiple borer holes on the fire, or use them for garden stakes, but if someone insisted I use such stuff & I couldn't dissuade them, I'd have tried to use all boards that were similarly afflicted with borer holes & gum veins so that the "feature" was similar across the whole top. But that's just my aesthetic, there are no rules when it comes to art - one persons "art" is another person's mess.

Anyway, I think the OP's main concern was that there were living critters in there that were about to reduce the nice new buffet to sawdust, but I think she can relax, I would be 99% certain there is no active infestation.

Cheers