Woodworm?

[technium]

I have just collected some huge chunks of Spalted beech from someone local and notice that it has a few holes in some of the pieces. Can I just buy some woodworm treatment from screwfix and paint it on, does that stuff kill it. I dont even know if its live or anything, is there an easy well to tell?

thanks

Colin

 

[NazNomad]

I'd fill the current holes with wax and see if any new holes appear. The holes are made when the woodworm exits the wood to breed.

Dust emerging from the holes isn't a great way to tell because there is dust present in vacated holes too.

... or chuck it on the lathe and see if the centrifugal force makes them stick to your face-shield. :-D

 

[Stiggy]

I am working on a bit of spalted beech as well at the moment.

What I did was to get to my finished shape, sand to 80 and 120 then wire brush all the soft sawdust out of the larvae tunnels. I put some epoxy to fill in these channels and am finishing the outside today.

I'll let you know how this works.

 

[technium]

Thanks. Ive put each piece approx 18" x 18" x 10" into large plastic bags for the time being and have ordered the screwfix stuff so will probably give it all a coat in that stuff then reseal it until im ready to get them out to have a proper look.

Theres a fair few holes, some only 1mm in diameter and some about 4mm in diameter.

Stiggy did you literally sand each hole then fill, as that would take ages lol. let me know how you get on.

thanks

Colin

 

[Stiggy]

I have a Youtube video with how I dealt with the tunnels - and there were a LOT of them!

check out 2:22 on the video where you can see what the bottom of the bowl looked like after I used a wire brush to clean out the tunnels!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCwx79mZE3I

I used epoxy, but would probably use a gold/silver/copper metal powder to give a cool effect if I get a chance to do it again.

For little holes I would use some kind of wood filler that matched the colour of the piece - either that or make a feature of them!

(the result is in the pieces from the shed post of mine)