I recently was given some small pieces of spalted pine. Boards are about 1 thick and vary from 6-8 wide; all less than 24 inches long. I’d love to resaw & plane them down to make a box, and foolishly thought that the frass I was seeing was old material and the wood was no longer inhabited.
While jointing an edge today I found a live larvae….clearly not a good sign.
Anyone have experience salvaging infested wood by killing the critters?
Replies
You could roast them in your oven. I think you have to get the wood to he 130-140 range inside. Correct this if incorrect.
Though about that but wondered about warping the boards.
A day of ammonia fuming would probably do the trick. Pine should not change color much, if at all.
I have roasted wood in an oven. I have not noticed movement in stable dry stock. The wood gets darker and feels a bit harder afterwards. My goal was the darker color. Cherry goes almost black roasted at 375F for 3.5 hrs.
Thanks for the quick replies. So....into the oven with it all then. Now I just have to get my wife out of the house for the time that it takes to do it !
BTW: When I roast wood I seal it airtight in foil, I read somewhere that it minimizes smoking. Still gonna smell it though, so the wife ain't gonna NOT know.
I chickened out. Took it to a friend who has a cheapy gas stove she uses for cloth dyeing. Roasted the boards at 220 for 30 minutes and then turned the heat up to 350. I was concerned that the boards would warp or cup.....didn't happen.
BUT, the stove has open slots on the bottom edges of the burner cover at the oven floor, so those boards on the bottom shelf and one tooooo close to the open slot, roasted and toasted....one actually began to burn in a small pitch pocket. Yep, got smoke !
I shuffled the boards around, moved them away from the open slots, turned the heat down to 300 and let them cook for an hour more. I turned off the oven and left them there all night.
The scorch marks did come out on the jointer....about 1/16 " deep.
Now, I'll resaw and plane and see if I have enough material or the box.
Happy wife, happy life.
You found a way to get decorative burn marks. Looks interesting.
I think all you had to do was kill the bugs - not incinerate to ash. But the end result looks interesting. Good luck with the project.
Yeah, well....I was only trying to kill the bugs. I was working with a mix of info about temperature, and thought 350 a bit high. I can't imagine any insect larvae surviving a temp above about 150. If I didn't have so many other things I want to do, I'd take a 1" thick board, drill a deep hole just the size of a remote oven temp probe into the end grain and see just how long it takes to get up to 150-200.
The burn marks did not please me and I was happy that they'll plane out. I DO love highly figured wood, which is why I wanted to salvage the pine. I'm only learning to make small boxes and instinctively find myself much more in the Doug Stowe school of wood choices than the Matt Kenney.
The few boxes that I have made so far often seem to start from a cut-off (like the cherry top in the photo) OR, the spalted pine that I "rescued" from the trash bin.
The pine box is coming up in the next few weeks. I'm interested to see how the boards plane out and hoping that the insect tunnels and holes add to the look, but not dominate (or ruin) the final appearance. Will post a photo to close the thread when its done.
Thanks for the help guys.
150 degrees seems low... the bugs survive fires, just like the trees do and wood is a pretty good insulator.
Did you wrap the boards in foil? I have never gotten scorch marks like that.
Nice box.
https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/disturbance/invasive_species/firewood_treatment/#:~:text=Most%20insects%20were%20killed%20when,core%20temperature%20for%2030%20minutes.
140 F for 60 minutes internal temperature was sufficient to eliminate insects.
Thanks ysu65 for the link to the research. Fits my expectation of what was really necessary. Next time I'll have a better idea of what I'm doing.
The scorch marks in my run were from (1) packing too many boards into the oven with some too close to the oven floor & the open slots at the edges that let direct heat in contact with a few of the boards, (2) using a temp as high as 350 (!) and not wrapping in foil. Mistakes I will not make in the future
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