kiln dried oak

[skeetstar]

Folks, I bought some kiln dried oak boards a month or so ago, and started to plane them to fletten them out today. I noticed that one of the boards has a strip of sap wood with some worm holes in it. I'm sure I can adjust the design to cut out the sap wood, but a few questions..

Should I resonably expect to get timber that isn't wormed when I go to a specialist hardwood timber supplier?
Is this a case of Caveat Emptor? Do you folks check for worm when getting new timber?

I will will cut away the sap wood, but if there are no holes in the heart wood I would not look to treat it, is that
sensible or would you treat it anyway?

Thanks in advance

 

[RobinBHM]

I think kiln drying is hot enough to prevent woodworm surviving, so unlikely to be active now.

Its not uncommon to see some woodworm holes in kiln dried wood, I get them in iroko sometimes.

 

[custard]

Some timbers, like English Walnut or English Cherry for example, are notorious for worm, and consequently I check each board carefully as your cutting list can be thrown out completely. However, worm can be present in any timber, I've even seen Rosewood boards that were badly infested. But to answer your question, a few wormholes in sapwood is par for the course and not grounds for returning timber unless you specifically stated it should be worm hole free. It's another good reason to hand select boards in person if at all possible.

I've tried explaining to clients on more than one occasion that a few old worm holes aren't a problem, that they're long dead and in any event can't survive in a centrally heated house (so treating isn't really required). However, even if the client accepts the explanation I can tell that they're not happy.

 

[skeetstar]

OK, Thanks Fellas, really appreciate yer input. I've cut out the wormed timber so all should be good.
Howevere I will certainly be taking a lot more care choosing boards in future - I think I was concentrating so hard
on getting boards without splits that I missed the obvious.

Thanks again

 

[Argus]

I use Oak (European mostly, by preference) and sap-wood is always present in waney edged stuff and I expect the price to allow for unusable parts.
Occasionally it is also present in the edges of sawn, square edged stuff and occasionally this has evidence of worm holes.

Personally I never use the sap wood from an aesthetic point of view - but that's me - however I've noticed that the blighters tend to prefer sapwood to the harder heartwood so it is useful as a sacrificial element to be cut away later.

I recall seeing a Bardic chair, a Welsh ornate, often carved type of wainscot chair given as an Eisteddfod prize, in an antique shop some while back; some of the back had incorporated sapwood and showed signs of worms. It was inscribed Anglesey, from the late 1930s and suggested to me that it was a later infestation. This chair was a show piece and the maker would not have left worm holes in view, even if he used the sapwood. The point being that the remainder was quite clean, so the worms do prefer the softer stuff, given a choice.

As I said, I prefer to cut it away regardless.