What is that little hole doing in my wood?

[Left_Coast_Rich]

I have just broken down a stack of air dryed  red oak and have noticed some pin holes with sawdust around it.  never a good sign.  First what little varment is sharing the wood with me and would a hot load from a termite company end our association?  I have an aquaintance that does my termite work for me. (real estate sales) who would put the wood in a garage on the next bag job.  Cost me about $100 and a little time.  I would think it would take care of the problem.  Anyone ever done anything like this before?  What kind of results did you get?   LC Rich

[srjones]

You might consider borates.  (Timbor, etc)  Cheaper and a lot safer than the termite pesticides.  The drawback is that a takes a little more time, but it's got that advantage of imparting some additional desireable qualities of fire resistance, mildew resistance and (of course) boring insect resistance.  Let me know if you need details on getting some.

-srj

[Riles]

The first thing to do is find a culprit. Bug ID is easier when you have a bug in hand.

It's probably not termites. Where did you have your stack? Termites leave a mud tube in order to commute between home and food.

Any galleries or just pin holes? Ambrosia beetles (Platypus and Xyleborus species) leave pin holes and sawdust and will attack lumber, but won't stay in wood once it's below 48 percent moisture content. Another reason to find a bug, they may already be gone.

[ohsoloco]

My guess is power post beetles.  I know there's been many discussions about it here on the forum.  If'n you'll be machining this wood further, I'd go with kiln drying...at least a long enough shot to kill the bugs. 

[Riles]

Yup, agree on both points.

The sawdust would have to be very fine for powderpost beetles and they'd be in the sapwood only. They eat starch, so there shouldn't be any holes in the heartwood.

Heating the stack up will take care of the problem regardless of the species.

[SwampDonkey]

They're tiny little buggers with clubbed antanae.



This one is a softwood ambrosia pictured above, but the hardwood ambrosia look very much alike.

[SwampDonkey]

Buprestidae and sawyer beetles have oval and round exit holes respectively and they have holes as wide as a pencil. Called flat-headed and round-headed borers. Bupresidae adults are metalic gold or green, sawyer beetles are black with long antenae and can bite. YEOW!!!!!


;D