Thread: Powderpost bugs in my slab..DAMMIT!

The base looks good... a tad over-complicated for my tastes, but that's beside the point.

Personally, I'd err on the side of safety and bag the slab with a suitable pesticide and stash it away for another year or two. I'd already consider it a write-off for this project... which has two benefits if you look at it optimistically.

1. It gets the project moving again, even if not quite in the way you'd originally planned. Meaning less storage of half-finished pieces and giving you back otherwise lost shed space.

2. A year or three down the track when the slab is remembered and rechecked, there may be a pleasant surprise suitable for a smaller project. If not, well... already considered a write-off so no disappointment there.

Most of our Eucs are sapwood susceptible to Lictus attack. While ever there is available cellulose in the timber, the attacks will continue. All sapwood should be removed before use.

Thanks guys. As the idea of making a coffee table from the remaining heartwood grows on me, I reckon that'll be the path I'll take. Tomorrow morning I'll tear the sapwood off the slabs and polish the frame and set it aside in the house until a suitable set of boards or a slab comes along to finish off the project.

If I was to tent the slab and fumigate it, what chemical should I use? I'm assuming I can't get the professional stuff because small doses kills pests, larger doses kills everything else.

while tenting the slab and fumigating might kill the beetles in the slab, those elsewhere in your shed will be unaffected and the infestation will return if there is any sap wood left on the slab.

I'm going to have to move all of my timber around to make room for more in the coming days. So i'll have a chance to physically inspect every last piece. I figure anything with bug holes is going to the burn pile. Anything with undesirable sapwood, straight to the burn pile. Anything with nice sapwood will be kept aside so I can monitor it easily over the next 12 months.

Lyctus work on a fly in fly out basis. You may kill what is in the timber at the time, but others will return. While ever the sap wood contains celullose to feed the hatching grubs.
I'm very selective about the types of timber I will sticker and put into storage for drying, as I know full well Lyctus will attack at the first opportunity.
Many of our timbers are only sapwood susceptible and the borers won't touch the true wood. These are the timbers I am happy to lay down for the future.

Two ripping cuts to remove the sapwood is the easy way to solve the issue.

If you want to keep it you need to stop playing about with things like mortein and get serious about it. Go to the hardware store or vets and get some permethrin concentrate, the higher % of permethrin in solution the better. Throw the directions over your shoulder. Mix it with turpentine like you want them dead. Get a half length of pipe or something because you want to soak the sapwood in the solution. The turps will penetrate the sapwood taking the permethrin into it, then evaporate out quite quickly.

Permethrin dissolved in white spirits (turpentine-) is EXACTLY what commercial LOSP H3 clear treatment is, only you arent using pressure to impregnate it so its a little slower. But just like LOSP treated pine the evaporation of the turps will leave the timber unswollen (ie it wont take moren a day or two to be dry again). The permethrin will not evaporate and will remain in the wood giving you residual protection. That'll puckem. Wear gloves because the turps will also quite happily carry the permethrin through skin too and its supposed to kill living things.

Any solution that is water based will of course suck right on in and leave you with "green" boards again, which is okay if you want to wait 6 months or so for it to dry out again

Other than soaking the sapwood, as has been suggested, the only other alternative is to find someone (butcher) with a really large freezer, pop it in there for a week, thaw it quickly in the sun, then seal the wood ASAP.

Kuffy,
Bad luck mate, hope it all works out. For the ignorant, (me), powderpost bugs, lyctus, is this what old soldiers like me know as "borers"? Most often seen in old hardwood furniture, hardwood house frames and the like? Tiny external tunnels into the timber? You used to be able to get syringes of some magic stuff to inject in the holes,( probably planet destroying,fattening, and morally bankrupt), but it worked.
Kind regards,and happy Xmas,Redbog

I don't know enough about the bugs, but I do know that there are different types of borers. Big ones, some that like everything, some that only like hardwoods.

I did a bit of a cleanup through the garage and removed any suspect pieces. I found a few pieces of Blackwood with sapwood which had been demolished by the bugs. They really do love sapwood and don't care much for the heartwood. This particular piece of Blackwood was pretty well gone, so a very high likelihood of being the culprit rather than just another victim. The sapwood was very very crumbly.
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Fekit in #9 knows what we do here: Freeze the wood, quickly.
Repeated freeze/thaw cycles no bugs can adjust their biochemistry fast enough to cope with it.

Long slow slide into a Canadian winter, lots of forest insects can cope.
We have 18,000,000 ha pine killed by Mountain Pine Beetle in BC as standing proof.
In and out of my deep freeze every 3 days? Gotcha, bugs.

Fumigation or liquid washes won't work as you're expecting the chemicals to get down each and every bug-tunnel?
I doubt it.

As far as I'm aware it's the H2O within the cells of the grubs that freezes. A normal or slow freeze creates large crystals that puncture through the cell walls essentially cutting them to pieces, it's a death by a thousand cuts. A quick thaw prohibits any possible regeneration, do not underestimate the resilience of the little bastards. A quick freeze, or snap freeze, that's used in commercial fishing for example produces very very small crystals that, for the most part, do not damage the cell wall as much, hence your fish and prawns are nice and firm not soft and mushy. This would probably still kill the grubs, however, I wouldn't be taking any chances.

Originally Posted by Kuffy

I don't know enough about the bugs, but I do know that there are different types of borers. Big ones, some that like everything, some that only like hardwoods.

I did a bit of a cleanup through the garage and removed any suspect pieces. I found a few pieces of Blackwood with sapwood which had been demolished by the bugs. They really do love sapwood and don't care much for the heartwood. This particular piece of Blackwood was pretty well gone, so a very high likelihood of being the culprit rather than just another victim. The sapwood was very very crumbly.
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Rub the dust between thumb and finger, if the dust feels smooth its Lyctus. If course or gritty it will probably be furniture beetle Anobium borer.

The big holes look like Longicorns. But they'll be long departed - they are a pest of injured trees and logs but wont move in once the wood is dry.