Mesquite, first experience?

[alex grams]

I am looking at making a desk from mesquite, which I have never worked with. I have a few questions for anyone who may have some experience:

-Powder Post Beetles: A lot of the wood I see is air dried. A few places kiln dry to kill the beetles, but what should be precautions, actions be for addressing the concern of beetles in air dried wood?

-In regards to air drying, I've have 2-3 yards say that while their mesquite has been cut and only had the chance to dry 2-3 months but they have people buy and use it in that condition for furniture. This is not what I would consider enough time to get to a reasonable MC for using in furniture (1yr/inch rule of thumb) Has anyone used mesquite this way?

-Favorite/Most economical epoxy for filling cracks and voids? I've seen System 3, West System, and a few other brands, any preferences for brand/cost?

Any other input would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[John Piwaron]

I got a few boards (8/4) a few years ago to make a table. I could have bought it with the cracks and voids already full but did not. I used ~ 3 quarts of West System with no tinting to fill the cracks, ring shake and other defects. No problem with insects. It machined well, easier than hard maple, harder than cherry. No problems with tear out. I glued the boards together with yellow following all of that filling. I forgot to check the moisture content when it arrived. But one of the useful things about mesquite is that it tends to not warp since tangential and radial shrink are the same. If your design allows for the fact that wood moves, I think you probably won't have any trouble. Of course, if it feels wet to your hand when it shows up, I'd set it aside and wait. I mean, stable or not, too wet is too wet.

FWIW, even though I didn't do anything to tint the epoxy, when the crack or gap is small it'll look black when you complete your project. However, if you're filling a big gap, maybe you will. I did a place like that and when I look straight down through it I see that it's a translucent yellow.

And that brings up another thing. I used a good amount of blue painter's tape closing off the opposite side of any cracks/gaps I was filling. And made multiple "fills". I had to let it soak into the void. Which it did but not in any particular hurry. This is actually a good thing. If you were able to fill a large void with several ounces of epoxy, the epoxy would itself crack as it does what plastic does - shrink when it cools. I just had an interesting experience filling a void with epoxy. It took about 5 fluid ounces to fill a recess. When I checked 24 hours after pouring it in, I saw that it had cracked in 3 places. And I mean crack as in there was a gap. So filling it a little at a time seems better for avoiding that. The big gap fill on the table did not do that. But it took about 5 or 6 fills to get it where I needed to be.

[John Downey]

I've worked with a lot of mesquite, stable it is, but that yard is giving you a big story. Three months is not long enough to dry. In a pinch, I remember putting 30% MC wood in the kiln for use a couple weeks later. Far from ideal, but the only reason we did it was that the wood was for table legs - less of a stability problem than wood for table tops or panels.

You can make a solar kiln easily enough, just 2x4's and some clear plastic over the pile of wood, a fan for forced ventilation. Might not get hot enough to kill beetle eggs, but it will get your wood dry in half the time. I buy a pyrethin concentrate at the feed store to control flies and fleas on our animals. Might kill beetle eggs too, that's something to look into.

We used West System epoxy, with a dye from the paint store -- Proline was the brand as I recall. As John mentioned, the epoxy will crack if you fill a large void in one big pour. One way around that is to reduce the catalyst to resin ratio. This stuff is exothermic as it cures, but the resin is not a good thermal conductor. Large pours end up holding more heat than small ones, causing them to expand more and then contract more when they cool, causing the cracks. You can always re-fill the cracked epoxy. Less catalyst slows the reaction and allows additional time for heat to dissipate before the resin hardens.

[lowell holmes]

I suggest you contact Frak Strazza at Homestead Heritage. They use a lot of mesquite, and they may have some to sell.

The link to Frank is www.cfeeschool.com

I made a mesquite rocker there.

I've used System 3 epoxy. None of it is economical.

If your hands get stained from working the wood, concentrated lime juice when washing your hands will take it off. That works with walnut also.

[Paul A. Clark]

Alex, check mesquiteburl dot com. Good guys, good product, on site kiln. I have used them several occasions and always been happy. Just get ready for the bill.