Something Wild Happened

[Jon Lanier]

I was roughing out one of the spalted pieces. I was just about finished with the outside of the bowl and ready to turn it around when the phone rang.

As I was talking, I was looking at the bowl to see if it was where I wanted it to be... when... I saw dust starting coming out of a little hole about an 1/8th inch in the tenon I had turned.

Turns out a little creature had survived to this point and didn't care for the remodeling I was doing to his home. I don't know for sure what it was, spider or some beetle. But I saw tiny legs kicking more dust out of the hole.

I quickly grabed some CA (it was at hand) squirted some in followed by a shot of accelerator. I finished roughing the bowl and then threw it in the DNA bucket.

I figure if he survived the turning, he sure didn't survive his bath. http://pic14.picturetrail.com/VOL561/3684635/17773411/277374637.jpg

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Jon,

You blew your chance to observe a multi-legged creature stagger under the influence of acute vertigo!:rolleyes:

Now he's encapsulated, intoxicated and embalmed forever! Be sure to note that on the bottom. It could be a great selling point.

[Dick Strauss]

Jon,
I've had worms/grubs survive a complete 24 hour submersion in a fresh DNA bath! The worm looked like he'd been partying but nonetheless was still crawling very slowly!

BTW-I wonder how long the agave worm survives before succumbing to the alcohol soak prior to the bottling of mezcal con gusano (or mescal with worm).

[William Bachtel]

If insects were easy to kill, there wood be none.

[Jim Underwood]

I found that a little trip to the freezer usually does 'em in. :D

[Clara Koss]

you meanies....couldn't you just let em go?????

[Jim Underwood]

Yeah... you could, but you'd just be invitin' 'em to come eat your shop down...:(

I need to clear out a bunch of stuff in mine since the bark beetles have gotten into everything. Just tonight I found a piece of Cherry burl that they've started eating it's been so long since I put it in there.:o

[curtis rosche]

you shouldve included that in the peice, glue the bug as it was comin gout of the whole, that would be neat. dye the glue oarange and call it amber

[John Shuk]

I've seen Irish carpenter ants on a blank before. I poured alcohol on them and they started fighting with each other.
(I can say that I'm Irish)

[Gene O. Carpenter]

Around 25-30 years ago there was a family that had a nice Ranch type house built on their lot in Neptune NJ and the builder bought all the dimensional sticks from a well known lumber co..
I was in the completed home to install and demo the new Kenmore washer and dryer. I found a cream colored stripe of dust from one side of the washer to the other and then on across the dryer, the same powdery stripe was on the floor under a few 2"X12"'s .
After I had installed both machines I called to the lady of the house to come down to do the demo and I pointed this powder out to her. She replied that they had just noticed it themselves and it was a puzzelment..
After my demo I took out my MiniMag Lite to took a closer look at these 2by's. Being 6' 4-1/2" tall I could see very well.. There were tiny little holes along the sides of the 2by's and if you stood still, held your breath and listened you could hear a very slight noise.
If we turned the house lites off, then aimed the MiniMag along the bottom of the 2by you could see little spurts of this powdery substance drifting downward.
I told her to call her husband and to let me speak to him. I told him what we, his wife and I, had seen and that he should call the builder to have their CO man check it out.
I then went on to my next call and completed the day.
About a week later as I was traveling that same street I saw a work gang covering the house with large tarps and there was 2 men and a lady standing in the driveway. I recognised her so I stopped to see what they had found to be the problem,
It turned out 1 of the men was the builder and the other her husband..He said that they had contacted the lumber co and found they had ordered a shipment of off shore material which turned out to be infested with some type of cellulose muncher. ( too many years ago, can't remember the species)
They were sealing the structure to do a Bromide treatment and had about 15 other houses to do plus after burning the rest of that shipment they had to treat the lumber co warehouse, try to locate and treat all the scrap waste wood from those sites where they had shipped the wood..
The builder said these "insects" were worse than Termites and they hoped they had nipped it in the bud!
He said the way those little boogers :<) were chewing the house would collapse within 3-4 years.
I guess they must have caught it in time as I heard nothing more about it except that the importers would be required to treat any shipments of building material coming into the USA.
I also heard that there have been insects found in the wood that pallets are made from that were coming in.
Scary, you don't know what you'll wake up to tomorrow!

[Jim Underwood]

I wish I could get hold of some of that stuff. It will certainly get rid of the critters. I know where some is, but it's quite illegal to ship it that far even if it survived the trip. I don't think they make the stuff anymore either.

[Allen Neighbors]

I'm curious about the bromide treatment... what is bromide?
I made a glassed-in shadow box, while stationed in Germany, from an ammo box. I planed the wood with a hand plane, to 1/2" thickness, and built the shadow box to about an 8x18 inch rectangle. Shipped it home to the USA, and hung it on the wall. One year later, I took the glass off so my wife could change some of the knick-knacks. There was a small pile of dust in the corner of one space. The thing had bugs. I used some 'gift fur HolzWormen' that I had on hand. Never any more signs of that sort of activity. That was about 1979.
"Gift fur HolzWormen" means Wood Worm Poison. An injection of Lacquer Thinner in each hole works for me now, and it evaporates quickly. After treating a pile of blanks, if I miss a hole or two, they'll usually reveal themselves in a day or two. :)

[Jim Underwood]

Allen,
I believe the "Bromide" that he's talking about is Methyl Bromide. As a gas it's colorless and odorless, and is/was used as an economical broad spectrum pest control. I don't think it's in use anymore, but you can read about it here:

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/mbr/qa.html
or here:
http://sofia.usgs.gov/sfrsf/entdisplays/pest_alt/ecorest.html

I see after a Google search that there may be alternatives.

[curtis rosche]

thats the stuff thats in the sealed glass bottle at school, drop it and evacuation ensuse becuase it that much of a killer. i dont think i would breathe air in that house ever