Preventing worm attack

[Les Symonds]

What methods do you use to prevent worm attack in your timber store? The only significant method that I use is to douse green timber with a borax solution  before putting it into stick, so I'm interested in what anyone else has tried.
Les

[Tim Pettigrew]

Hi Les
Yes I use Borax which has certainly worked for me. The only problem I have had with that is it's incompatibility with PVA used to coat end grain and green turnings.  I now use EndSeal instead which is incidentally much more effective than using PVA or paint and is fine with Borax.
Hope this is helpful.
Tim
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[bodrighywood]

If by orevent you mean kill any in a piece of wood there are proprietary potions you can use. They work for me but I give several coats to make sure. Alternatively deepfreeze fpr a few days or microwave if the piece ios smll enough. Most of the various types of isect prefer damp wood so  keeping your wood as dry as possible helps to stop it spreading as well.

Pete

[Les Symonds]

If by orevent you mean kill any in a piece of wood there are proprietary potions you can use. They work for me but I give several coats to make sure. Alternatively deepfreeze fpr a few days or microwave if the piece ios smll enough. Most of the various types of isect prefer damp wood so  keeping your wood as dry as possible helps to stop it spreading as well.

Pete

....I'm thinking more along the lines of preventing the little critters getting into my timber stock in the slab and in the log!

[bodrighywood]

If you haven't gpt any kind of infestation and keep the wood in the dry you should be OK. Avoid mixing dry wood with amny that has mould, rot etc as the soft damp wood attracts the beetles in the first place.

Pete

[Bryan Milham]

A dry store and Spiders. My Woodstock is full of them. Anything flying in there finds their webs fairly quickly.

Okay, this answer is a bit tounge in cheek.

[Les Symonds]

A dry store and Spiders. My Woodstock is full of them. Anything flying in there finds their webs fairly quickly.

Okay, this answer is a bit tounge in cheek.

...that's a shame, I was going to ask you to send me some spiders!

[Bryan Milham]

I'm quite sure Welsh spiders are just as happy eating flying things as my British ones

[seventhdevil]

i don't keep timbers that the worms like...

that usually does the job.

[Paul Hannaby]

I remember reading somewhere (may have been Tobias Kaye) that a good way to deal with the problem is to hang a bunch of fresh hazel twigs in the workshop, which attracts any bugs, then before next spring throw it out or burn it and repeat the process.

[michaelb]

If Paul is right it my guess is it should be "Witch Hazel" to work a magic spell ..

[Paul Hannaby]

I think its much simpler than that - fresh wood has a high moisture content so is attractive to the bugs.

[bodrighywood]

I think its much simpler than that - fresh wood has a high moisture content so is attractive to the bugs.

also a softer wood and they prefer that tp the hard woods though I have noticed oak burrs seem to attract one type. There are dozens of different ones.

Pete

[Les Symonds]

Plenty of good info coming through here....thanks everyone, for the input.
Les

[crazylegs]

When in Austria all the museums had acorns in any wooded items. Apparently any wood worm was attracted more to the acorns than the timber. I tried this when I got home, no worms in the timber but none in the acorns either. so the jury is still out. Sort of makes sense(ish).