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Powder post? and long-term storage

Started by Engineer, August 17, 2016, 08:05:58 AM

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Engineer

I've been storing about 5000-6000 board feet of mixed lumber in one of those 20' overseas shipping containers, for about two years now.  It's bone dry and had been in covered storage before that for several years.  I noticed that when I put the lumber in the container, a few pieces (notable some ash and maple) had a lot of little tiny holes and dust around them.  Holes being 1/16" and smaller.  It's also been well over 100 degrees in that container for much of last summer and this one, and well below freezing during the past few winters. 

Now I'm planning on moving all that lumber into my new shop/garage late this fall, and should I be worried about bugs?  If so, what's my solution?  Fumigate the container before I move the lumber?  Spray the lumber with something?  Burn the pieces that have the holes?  Or just not worry?  I'm thinking that the stuff has been subjected to such extreme temperatures that nothing would survive. 

Kbeitz

 sulphur fumigation candles
Sit it in a tray of pan to prevent a fire.
Collector and builder of many things.
Love machine shop work
and Wood work shop work
And now a saw mill work

bluthum

Boric acid mixtures  sprayed on are said to keep them  [powder post beetles] at bay. It won't effect the ones burrowed in much. I haven't tried it myself but have several stacks on which I wish I had. They love ash& hickory but will eat about any hardwood, not sure about softwoods.

You can buy boric acid mixtures from log home supply places but I would do a little research first and see if you can't just buy the dry chemical and mix your own, apply with garden sprayer to all surfaces.

And yeah, my experience is an infested board is shot through and they will continue to party on your sound boards if untreated. Your high temps are too low to control them.  I think rule of thumb on bugs is 20* below for 2 continuous weeks for a good kill on the low side. So just for my own education just how cold does it get and for how long in this case? Since it obviously isn't cold enough, no?

AnthonyW

You guys are making me worry. I have a nice stack of oak I don't need to turn into somethings lunch. I didn't spray the lumber. Didn't really think to as I mostly work with pine. How much should I worry about PPB or the like? How long between sawing and PPB?
'97 Wood-Mizer LT25 All Manual with 15HP Kohler

ChugiakTinkerer

It seems like a good idea to take some precautions.  This link suggests that the beetles are a problem in Minnesota too, so you may not want to rely on cold weather being sufficient to kill them off.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/insects/find/powderpost-and-other-wood-destroying-beetles/

With wood stored in a container it seems like an ideal opportunity to fumigate, or perhaps heat it up to 120 F.
Woodland Mills HM130

POSTON WIDEHEAD

Just asking....is it possible to put a heater in the shipping container and get the temp up to 150° until the bugs are dead?
I don't know.
The older I get I wish my body could Re-Gen.

YellowHammer

Quote from: POSTONLT40HD on August 17, 2016, 09:47:19 PM
Just asking....is it possible to put a heater in the shipping container and get the temp up to 150° until the bugs are dead?
I don't know.
I would think so, I've been using 500watt halogen lights in my kilns for extra heat.  However, if the wood is dead stacked,  it will take a very long time to get the center of the stacks hot.  I like to get to 145F minimum, and leave it there.  Unfortunately, I've found that moderately high temps, such as 100 or so, just seems to accelerate their life cycle, and really put them into overdrive. 

One easy way to find out is to just look at the boards.  If the beetles are dead, they will look like little black dots on the surface of the wood. 
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

WDH

In my experience in Central Georgia, if you leave ring porous hardwood lumber (red oak, white oak, ash, pecan, hickory, elm, etc) outside under a shed for a long time, you are sure to get PPBs.  It is worse if the boards are stickered as the beetles have easier access to more boards. 

Engineer, it sure sounds like you have PPBs in your lumber.  You are just going to have to bite the bullet (old saying) and sticker the lumber so that you can treat it.  Heat would do it.  Not going to be an easy job. 

Anthony, at least here, once the wood is air dried below 20% moisture, the wood is ripe for PPB infestation.  Again, at least here, you are looking at 6 months or less for green hardwood lumber that has been stickered to air dry to 20% or less.  So, at least here, not much time between green and ripe for a PPB party. 

In my business, I cannot afford to sell wood to people that might have the possibility of containing any powderpost beetles, their larvae, or eggs.  So, my hardwood gets sprayed with disodium octaborate tetrahydrate before stickering.  I also sterilize the lumber after kiln drying by holding the heat in the kiln at 150 degrees for 24 hours.  Even with the kiln, I still spray.  I don't want them in the wood even if I can kill them later with heat because they ruin the wood. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

AnthonyW

I am thinking of using Tim-bor. I haven't used it or done anything like this before (as I read in another post, I'm as green as the lumber when it comes to this).  I found a place where I can get 1.5 pound bags for $8ea/qty 8. The site lists two concentrations, 10% applied twice, or 15% applied once (1.5 pound to 1.5 gal and 1.5 pounds to 1 gal for 10% and 15%, respectively). They list 1 gallon to treat 200 sq feet. I have 380 bdft of 4/4, that equates to 760 sq ft to cover.

What concentration do you use? What is recommended?
'97 Wood-Mizer LT25 All Manual with 15HP Kohler

Engineer

OK I think you guys have helped with a possible solution.  The wood is dead stacked but I have a generator and a small electric heater I can put in there and get it up to 150 degrees.  I also have a couple of gallons of Boracare concentrate which I could spray on the boards as well.

Also have found that there is something that likes to eat the cambium (the inner bark) off of live-edge cherry boards.  Could that be PPB too, or something else?  It basically turns to dust and the bark falls off if disturbed.

WDH

Anthony,

Timbor is 98% disodium octaborate tetrahydrate (DOT).  I mix 1.2 pounds of DOT per gallon.  That is 6 pounds in a 5 gallon bucket.  I have not had any problems with the sprayed lumber.  I spray heavy though; I wet the lumber to saturation on all edges and both faces.  I do not spray the ends as they have been coated with anchorseal which protects the ends. 

Engineer,

That sounds like PPB in the cherry sapwood, too.  They will get in the sapwood of both walnut and cherry, but they don't seem to like the heartwood. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

petefrom bearswamp

All this is scaring me.
I have a fair amount of air dried Maple Ash Cherry Butternut and Elm dead stacked in my pole building.
Some has been there for up to 10  years.
I planed an ash board in the spring and it had some PPB damage .
Maybe I have a lot of expensive firewood on my hands.
Kubota 8540 tractor, FEL bucket and forks, Farmi winch
Kubota 900 RTV
Polaris 570 Sportsman ATV
3 Huskies 1 gas Echo 1 cordless Echo vintage Homelite super xl12
57 acres of woodland

69bronco

I'm in the same boat, I've got around 5000 ft of mixed hardwood that's been dead stacked for years. It is all clear, cream of the crop and covered with little piles of sawdust arg-smiley

bedway


Wormy oak sells for a premium. ;D I just ran my first load out of my home made DH kiln. Ill report on my results as time allows.

Magicman

But those "worms" need to be Ambrosia Beetles not Powder Post Beetles.  Back in my woodworking days I sold well over 100 "Wormy Pecan" clocks.  Not so many when I ran out of that lumber supply.
Knothole Sawmill, LLC     '98 Wood-Mizer LT40SuperHydraulic   WM Million BF Club Member   WM Pro Sawyer Network

It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

YellowHammer

Quote from: petefrom bearswamp on August 19, 2016, 08:06:24 AM
All this is scaring me.
I have a fair amount of air dried Maple Ash Cherry Butternut and Elm dead stacked in my pole building.
Some has been there for up to 10  years.
I planed an ash board in the spring and it had some PPB damage .
Maybe I have a lot of expensive firewood on my hands.
Before I got my kilns up and running, and became able to sterilize, I lost more lumber and money to bugs than any other thing.  It became ridiculously expensive and discouraging, sawing up high end logs to make high end, clear wood, to air dry and later come back months to find out that it was now shot with holes.  Even worse, the little buggers would use the stickers to travel from board to board, so the boards would have evenly spaced rows of holes, all aligned with where my stickers had been.  So then, not only did my lumber have holes, my stickers were infected and would contaminate fresh boards.  I'm not an entomologist but it also seems that they put out a pheromone or something, so that once I got an infestation (more rightly, an infection) it would just get worse.  So, there's only one really gratifying and sure fire effective way to kill PPB and other pests.  Flash them off!  Cook them until they scream.  Here's one of my favorite pictures of a flashed off worm that didn't even make it out of its hole before it turned to a crispy critter.  Also notice that all the holes in the picture are in a narrow band, going across the board.  Guess what, that's where my a sticker had been. 


 
YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

WDH

Fry them.  Fry the little suckers.  FRY them.  FRY them HOT.

Scourges. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

GeneWengert-WoodDoc

Because ambrosia beetles like air dried ash and most other species, and make 1/16" holes, it is hard to tell when you see holes if you have PPB.  But, when you unstack the lumber and you find no little piles of dust, then the holes are from a previous infestation and not active PPB.   There is only one PPB in the US that affects kiln dried hardwoods (mainly grainy sapwood) and that is the lyctid PPB.  Other PPB are around but like wetter wood, so will not be found active in KD lumber.

The borates work well on the surface but the PPB larvae can spend up to two years tunneling in the wood and with no evidence they are there until they bore a hole to the surface as an insect.  The insect does not eat the wood as it exits, so borates do not help much for existing infestations and may not help much with new infestations on dry lumber.  Heat, or expensive fumigation (chemical is very dangerous and a license is needed) are the two options..  So heat is best for most people.  Most infestations come from some other wood, so dry storage with no exposure to other wood is fairly safe if the wood has been dried at 150 F.  Actually, 133 F kills them, but the air has to be about 150 to get the interior of the wood up to 133 F.

Borates are applied as a water solution so you will wet the lumber, which means redrying and possible checking with Oak.

YellowHammer...those are larva of ambrosia beetles.  PPB hatch more slowly and do not leave the dark or purple ring around the inside of the hole. Actually, the purple is from the ambrosia fungus that is food for the larvae.  The holes are used once as an exit hole when mating is of prime interest.
Gene - Author of articles in Sawmill & Woodlot and books: Drying Hardwood Lumber; VA Tech Solar Kiln; Sawing Edging & Trimming Hardwood Lumber. And more

oakiemac

One thing I do to help with the problem is to never store any lumber with any amount of bark on the wood. When my lumber comes out of the kiln I sort through it and grade it and at same time I cut or rip any bark off the wood. In white oak I try to get all the sapwood off as well. From my experience 90% of the PPB problems come from wany boards with bark left on.
The only woods that I really have had issues with are hickory, maple and white oak. I'll think I'll try what WHD does with the spray on some of these woods. If I find any evidence of PPB I burn that piece of wood.
Mobile Demension sawmill, Bobcat 873 loader, 3 dry kilns and a long "to do" list.

YellowHammer

Quote from: GeneWengert-WoodDoc on August 19, 2016, 05:41:42 PM

YellowHammer...those are larva of ambrosia beetles.  PPB hatch more slowly and do not leave the dark or purple ring around the inside of the hole. Actually, the purple is from the ambrosia fungus that is food for the larvae.  The holes are used once as an exit hole when mating is of prime interest.

That's pretty much what I had concluded at the time, I did some amateur photography and bug sleuthing to identify my foe, and found some of these guys (or girls?) crawling around.  They looked like ambrosia beetles (Ruinious Mywoodus) :D,  with the bulbs on the antenna. I don't mind them in my ambrosia maple, but not in my red oak.  They really react to the heat.  It was very discouraging, as I'd put boards into the kiln that had just a few holes, and take them out if the kiln with a lot of holes. 

YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

SineWave

Mr. Wengert - Is there any chance that a contact poison like permethrin or chlorpyrifos/Dursban might work for PPB and similar?

YellowHammer

It most likely won't penetrate the wood enough, to kill the larvae that are already there.  It will kill insects entering the wood, but so will the much safer Timbor type products. 
Of course, if the wood is sold, an SDS or full disclosure should be provided at some point to let the customer know which treatment may be present in the wood.

Personally, I stopped spraying some time ago, I just buy fresh logs, mill them quickly, dry them quickly and store the wood indoors as much as possible. 

YellowHammerisms:

Take steps to save steps.

If it won't roll, its not a log; it's still a tree.  Sawmills cut logs, not trees.

Kiln drying wood: When the cookies are burned, they're burned, and you can't fix them.

Sawing is fun for the first couple million boards.

Be smarter than the sawdust

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