Thread: Borers in Silky Oak

Spray your timber as soon as possible then wrap it up in some heavy duty plastic (concreting plastic) and let sit sit for 2-3 days. This acts as a fume cupboard and hopefully will kill the little *****. The borers wont take long to destroy your silky oak. Damien.

G'day.
Some borers only attack the sapwood.
Others will have a go at anything.
If they are only in the sapwood, it's a fair bet that they will not go for the truewood.
We treat Silky Oak and Camphor Laurel with a boron based preservative for the sapwood only.
You can get the same effect by getting some boron from woolies and mixing about 1kg to 10 litres of water. Spray it on with a garden sprayer paying special attention to where the borer holes are.
Then wrap it in black plastic ( boron will be absorbed faster in the dark) for a few weeks.
Also, if you have any borer contaminated sawdust laying around, give it a spray and then pile it up and give it a few cups of diesel and have a camp oven night with the family.

Hooroo.
regards, Trevor.
Grafton

Mix up a solution of borax & water (borax available from the supermarket) making it a sautuated solution.
Spray this on your oak before stickering & the borers will leave it alone.
If they are the Lyctid borer they shouldn't attack the hartwood.
Sapwood of the Silky Oak is dead boring (a kacky grey) & I'd get rid of it anyway.

i am a sawmiller and we cut a lot of silky oak my addvise is to just remove all sapwood.lictus borer only eats the sapwood no other type of borers will eat any heartwood once wood is dryed below 20% moisture content cheers dvo

I've got a text book called 'Urban Pest Management' and at the end of the chapter on wood borers there is a very short section that deals with non-chemical methods. One of these sounded easy for anyone to try. Wrap wood in black plastic and put it in the sun for 6 hours. It will get so hot in there that any borer or egg will not survive. This doesn't prevent reinfection later. I have a sideboard that by coincidence I think might be silky oak, and there are signs of borers. I'm going to give it a go I think.
Cheers
Liam