Some guys like to brag about doing romantic things for their wives. Well, I made a set of candle holders a couple weekends ago for a candle light dinner for my wife that night. She really loved the idea and bragged to all her friends about it.
A few days later, I found out that the pinholes and white residue on the wood I used were from powderpost beetles. Needless to say, those candle holders are no longer on the dining room table. Spalted maple can make turnings look great, but nobody will be impressed if they see bugs crawling out of your work.
At least you have an easy fix. You can put the candle holders in the deep freeze for about 3-4 days and your little friends will be gone, or a more risky tact with them being finished is to microwave them on defrost for about 2 minutes.
I would freeze them to make sure I didn't melt the finish.
At least you found out now.. I had a piece I finished that sat proudly on display in the bookcase until the telltale signs of bugs relegated it to the gargage. At the time I didn't know how to remedy those little buggers so I put thinned white glue in the tunnels. What a PITA.
Well Robert, in true COC tradition, I took offense and turned you in to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Beetles.
You know nothing about techniques for killing beetles. OTOH, I know it all. It takes exactly five (5) days, not 3 or 4, in deep freeze to do this humanely. (For those who dedicate their lives to fun-free and humorless woodturning, I didn't really turn Robert in. I like him.)
Thanks for the advice. I'll try the freezer, as I currently have them in a container covered with powdered boric acid.
Fortunately, I found a live beetle when I was turning more of that maple, so the candlesticks and bottle stoppers I made never had anything crawl out.
I was using the boric acid as a temporary solution until a found a quicker fix for the problem. I read that the incubation of these little pests could be up to 5 years. I definitely wasn't keeping the turnings in a container for that long.
Actually, now thatI've thought about it, would freezing really work for the eggs ? If these pests can take years to incubate, they would go thru a few winters before hatching. So, the eggs wouldn't be affected byt freezing.
Any other good quick fixes for this ? Besides the microwave ?
You've hit it on the head. Freezing will cause the grubs to go dormant, not die. Borax is great for those things that walk in it, but that's all.
Depending on the finish, I go for something asphyxiating to take care of adult and larva. Egg stage probably not a player. Some CA fumes, or perhaps a good place for ethyl alcohol, as long as your finish is not shellac. They'll get high and kill each other in traffic accidents....
I run into this problem frequently when working with spalted timbers and others who are particularly tasty to borers, beetles and the like. In my experience, freezing and micro waving were not particularly effective. The only way I have found to eliminate the bugs/larvae is to soak the piece in Odourless Mineral Spirits, Naphtha, or Alcohol for several days. It's a simple matter of chemistry...
I usually use Odourless Mineral Spirits and have found it 100% effective with a 2-3 day soak. (Note: Do not use regular Mineral Spirits as the smell will linger for weeks after you remove it from the soaking) Then, simply remove from the vat and let air dry for a few days and finish as normal. We have this problem routinely in Texas, not only with PP Beetles, but Mesquite Borers as well. Since I have been using this protocol (about 9 years), I have not had one instance of bugs/larvae hatching after finishing.
Since you have already finished these candlesticks, you may want to alter the soaking solution to suit your chosen finish. In the future, simply soak them after finish turning and before application of your chosen finish. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Take care and all the best to you and yours!
There is only one narrow window of palatability when eggs are laid in the wood. They may not all metamorphose at the same time, but should only be larval and adult stages present by now.
Anything that can eat wood will eat its way out through a few microns of finish. May gag or barf, but will get out.
If the microwave will kill them, why not rough turn your project, then microwave and then final turn it?
That way, you dont have a finish to melt and the bugs go from the lathe to the nuker. Plus, any warping by the nuker would be able to be countered by the final turning.
I believe that microwave radiation passes through wood. However, if the wood is wet enough, you could get some warping.
When living in California and buying Redwood or other craft type stuff for the house, it was required to have it gassed in a professional company. Buy a coffee table - and see it next week delivered.
The law there liked pressured gas. Kinda like tenting a house...
Martin Martin Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net NRA LOH, NRA Life NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
It's been suggested in the the past to put such wood in a container with ammonia vapors. Don't think that would hurt the finish, but a few days in there outta pretty much do 'em in I'd think...
If freezing would kill bugs, than why do we still have all those bugs up here in Canada, I assure you it does freeze here, every winter, for weeks if not months on end !! and yes we still do have bugs, all kinds.
I have used different stuff, and they work, gunk, gasoline, paint thinner, diesel fuel etc., just dunk your turning in it, it works, the smell disappears when the solvents etc. are evaporated, and yes you do take the normal precautions, like when you fill up your mower etc., no smoking and all the rest of the regular precautions.
Brad, I've read all the posts in this thread to date and I'd like to offer my own observations.
While I respect the winters our Canadian brethren get, I'm also aware that they do not often go from 70 degrees or so to 32 or less in a matter of minutes. That only happens here in Michigan. ;-)
Living things that are able to survive temp. extremes need some time to adjust to them. Tossing wood in the freezer doesn't give them a lot of time to get acclimated. The cooling down period in the forest actually begins mid-summer.
I toss my really nice pieces in the freezer then thaw them in the microwave on high long enough for the wood to steam (at least). Some time back I noticed smoke coming from a piece in the nuker. Closer examination (when all had cooled!) indicated that a bug of some sort had met a particularly grisly fate.
Keep the wood cold (and the beasties dormant) until you are ready to nuke them thoroughly. There aren't many places to hide in a microwave and there isn't much that can live through temps of 200 deg F or more.
The solvents probably work, (so would soaking the wood in DDT ... and for the same reasons) but you end up with a drippy piece of wood to contend with and the vapors have got to go somewhere when they leave the wood. I do my woodworking in my basement. I do what I can to minimize volatile fumes. I don't machine wood tht I know to have been recently soaked in toxic liquids. It's a symbiotic thing. My brain needs me to use my repirator and my respirator needs me to use my brain.
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