Thread: Dipping timber in borax etc

borax is suposed to stop the borers. duno if it dose, we spray poles and sapwood on timber that will be kept more than a week with a pecial timber chemical.

teh name iludes me at present. it shouldnt i have 100s of empty drums down the back.

All sapwood of lytcus susceptable timbers should be treated, no sapwood no treatment needed. Two places around here do treatments with borax, one by dipping & the other by pressure impregnation. The end use dictates the treatment needed. In NSW we have the timber marketing act / regulation which states the type & level of treatment needed for the end use.
regards inter

Hi Nifty,
I sprayed and soaked some mango (pieces in a ~75 litre bin for a week) in a borax solution a couple of years back, I'm a bit unsure whether it helped with keeping the borers out of it or not, it probably did, it tended to discolour the timber with various greens, yellows and grays, some of it is quite interesting marking, I also think a lot of the colouring is due to the blue stain, mango is a bit prone to blue stain specially in winter, it was winter time, cold and rain I probably wouldn't bother again.

I found this a while ago, seems that a boron/borax brew is a better proposition from an environment point of view, a lot more expensive tho than just borax from the supermarket, a bit of reading here on it .... http://alsnetbiz.com/homeimprovement/homemade.html



Pete

Yeh, Like Inter says, I find with what I do if I can get rid of the sapwood or at least the bark and get it drying it certainly helps, even if it's dry and they are in the sapwood they continue to chew into the sapwood but if it's dry and not in the wood u have much better chance that they won't find the wood, there is one species I reckon must be able to smell fresh cut (mango) they are into it as soon as and not just the sapwood


Pete

I think the solutions cited in Pete's link are intended as a mildewcide/fungicide; not sure about borers. I found it too, a few years ago when searching for mildew protection.

Cheers,
Joe

Cheers for the info so far fellas, so Inter, you guys have places you can take timber to and get it treated over there?

yep, i know of about 10 mobs in brisbane that do treating,

cca, losp, tanalised, whatever else you want

Tarmac QLD Timber & treatment.


there are some in WA

Timbachem - Timber Treatment & Preservation - Malaga, WA - Yellow Pages®

Timber Treaters WA - Timber Treatment & Preservation - Bridgetown, WA - Yellow Pages®


i pay between $200 and $25/cube depending on what level of treatment, what i have, and how mutch.

Lyctus borers are only chaseing the starch in the sapwood.Most of the timbers on the coast are suseptable to the lyctine borer,the forestry department will give you a list of all timbers that need to be treated and soakage times for hot and cold soaking depending on thicknes.Otherwise try DPI Timber Notes.Borax treatment is classed as H1 and only good for out of the weather and borers,other end of the scale is H6,marine borer,wharf piles etc.Hope this helps.

I don't get any timber treated as its impossible to compete with mills that do the treatment on site, once you add in the loadings & unloadings with transport 2 & from the treatment plant you can see why.
Easier just to not have sapwood on susceptable species.
regards inter

if i have a semi load (22 cube) to treat

it costs

$50 transport in
$25 treatin
$50 transport back.

thats only $125 / cube.

i only send in sapwood anything clear of sap dosent get treated.

the spotty logs im cutting at the moment have about 3" of sap on a 24" diameter log.

so on them is if i cut sap and all and treated im geting an extra 25% of use able log.

Fair call i reckon Carl, a mate of mine has just cut the top out of a big diesel tank and is using it as a cold dip tank and seems to be workin ok. Over here commercially we only have Koppers and the like that do cca treatment and that other hippy blue stuff to pine.

mate

have a look at these 2

there are some in WA

Timbachem - Timber Treatment & Preservation - Malaga, WA - Yellow Pages®

Timber Treaters WA - Timber Treatment & Preservation - Bridgetown, WA - Yellow Pages®

Yeh mate but both of them only do cca and the blue hippy stuff as well. Come to think of it no timber treaters over here do marine treatment of timber. At the moment the Busselton jetty is being restored, well in actual fact they are building a new one next to the old one. Its the second longest timber jetty in the southern hemisphere and the new pylons had to be trucked over from Victoria

borax can be sprayed of dipped, it needs to be done at 46 deg.

iv started boxing a lot of posts so am going to put in a dip as i want to do smaller spotty logs, with a lot of sap.

the dpi have now put borax in there list of aproved borer protection thingys.

it can only be used on timber that will be indoors above ground and in non wet areas.