Wood worm holes again !

[Radio Fixer]

One of the radios I collected at the NVCF was a Philips 753A, a motor tuned D57 really that I have almost completed the restoration of.  Just a problem with the top of the cabinet finish.

It came from an ex-TV and radio service engineer now in his 90s who didn't want it to go to a skip.  He was actually still using it as a daily set.  And Yes! it works, press the buttons and it motors up and down.  Needs the electronics sorted properly but that's not a problem just a lot of time, and that's fine with me.

However, in my excitement, I mustn't have asked about worm (Sorry! David who collected it for me) and there are quite a lot of holes.  Squirted them twice today and tomorrow I will strip it out and do the inside.  Using good old Cuprinol stuff bought before the Nanny EU banned it so it actually works so they say.

I'm planning to paint the inside with the stuff as well and then bag it up.  It may be a year away that I actually get around to refinishing the cabinet so that gives a long time for the critters to die.

Do you think this will be the case?

Its worth saving as quite a rare set and the cabinet is undamaged otherwise, just scratches.  Will be a complete refinish though and may fill the holes with glued in cocktail sticks, sanded flush.  Filler doesn't work in my experience, it tends to bubble up, some sort of pressure perhaps?

Thoughts appreciated and anything else I can do to make sure the vermin are exterminated.  Don't have a freezer big enough to take it.

thanks Gary 

[Mark Hennessy]

Just keep it dry. Woodworm can't survive when the moisture content falls below a certain level - can't remember the numbers, but in a heated house, it'll soon dry out to comfortably below that level.

They can live in the timber for 3 to 5 years before emerging. I'm unconvinced of the need for/effectiveness of chemicals. We had some in the cellar when we first moved in, but I've not seen any emerging in the last few years. In that time, as a result of sorting out ventilation, the cellar has dried out and the timbers are now close to normal moisture level. The timbers were allegedly treated previously, but that didn't stop them when the cellar was unventilated. And I haven't wasted time treating the timbers since moving in, yet the problem has gone. As the young people say, "go figure"

I'd have no qualms about bringing that set into the house to dry. I wouldn't even bother bagging it. Any beetles that emerge need to find a mate, and then a suitable place to lay their eggs, and they won't find anywhere in a normally heated house - they'll be straight out the window to find a decaying bit of tree in the garden. People have an irrational fear of "infestations", mostly caused by the timber treatment industry.

[Yorkie]

If it's any reassurance, having collected this radio from the seller to take to the NVCF for Gary, I've had it stored for several weeks is a spare bedroom and I'm not the least bit concerned about that. I knew it had woodworm holes in it before I brought it into the house, but woodworm holes are 'flight holes' (sometimes known as 'compass holes'). They're when the worms are in the final stage of their life-cycle, having pupated from larvae into beetles and burrows out - not into, the timber. They mate, and the males die - they live only for a few days and don't even have digestive organs. 

The 'worms ' will have been in the wood for maybe three years or more since the female entered the wood to lay her eggs, usually in the end grain. The worms then burrow up and down unseen before they pupate. The female lives only for a few days - when she's layed her eggs, her life is at an end.

It is possible, though improbable,  that while some beetles will have left the wood, and others still remain inside, but that is much more likely to be so in a felled tree with a high moisture content rather than a radio several decades old. Since the beetles exited the wood, leaving evidence that they'd been in there, many generations will have descended from them in pastures new.

In the case of Gary's radio, it's most likely that the female laid her eggs in the cabinet decades ago when it was stored in a damp place such as a shed, outhouse, garage etc. In well heated homes, the moisture content of furniture and timber will be far below what woodworm need to sustain them - maybe no more than 10% and probably below 5%.  The females are very choosy about where they lay their eggs, and I don't think they'd be interested in anything much below 30%. They need moisture and cellulose fibre to develop. A felled tree of 'green' timber, (maybe 80%) would be much more to their liking.

Yes, by all means put a radio cabinet in a bag, and see if their is any 'frass' coming from the holes (woodworm 'poo' - just fine wood dust, over a period of maybe a week or two, which might indicate activity, but it might. Just be falling out of the holes from disturbance of the cabinet.

To take the worst case scenario, and assume that I'm wrong in what I say, and that live beetles might emerge from a radio cabinet, I'd have no concern about that, because there's nothing in my house that would be of interest to a female beetle. She'd be out of the window and on the lookout for some nice moist timber - not bone dry furniture.

This is a topic that crops up often, and tends to generate more heat than light. Inevitably, most people will be alarmed, and will give the wood a good dosing with so called 'woodworm killer' on the basis that 'it's better safe than sorry', and even if it doesn't do any good, it won't do any harm.

As to filling holes, the problem is that filling small holes with wood, we're poking end grain into side-grained veneer, and the only way of disguising that, is I think by painting to match the veneer. Any sort of stain or varnish into end grain will make the plugged holes more obvious - not less.

The main problem with wormed timber is that it has no structural integrity - all the moisture will have been sucked dry, and the fibrous structure destroyed and turned to dust. I guess it could be soaked in polyethylene glycol ('PEG') sometimes used to stabilise unseasoned timber, but then all we want a radio to do is to look attractive and original - it's not load bearing.

Just my perspective on things - I don't mind if others beg to differ.
  
Waffled and dribbled Yorkie.

[pwdrive]

As has been said, the little sods are most probably long gone, as for treatment fluids, they do work but brushing the stuff on a varnished cabinet is a bit pointless , if you are concerned then direct injection into the flight holes is best.

Personally I wouldn't bother filling the holes it's all part of the sets history.

There are plenty of other species of wood boring insects, a common one that some folks think is the traditional woodworm is the bark beetle, sometimes the galleries that they create can be seen in plywood but rarely on the face surface, the galleries are very dark, almost black, another one is the wood wasp, you can't miss the holes 'cos they're big.

Sapwood is generally what the critters like.

Lawrence.

[Radio Fixer]

Thanks very much to you both. End of panic. As you say I'll bring it in the warm and let that do what's needed.

Gary

[Mark Hennessy]

"Both"?

[Radio Fixer]

Well Lawrence just got in before me by the look of it.  So thanks to all .

If I'm totally refinishing the cabinet then I will fill the holes.  Probably wooden cocktail sticks and the end grain would be taken care of by the "artists oil paint method".

But its a way down the track as I have another Philips to finish and then a Zenith 7 valve Black Dial with UK spec (export set).  Always wanted one, its the dial again.  Commander McDonald was right it helped sell them back in the mid 30's on and still does today.  The Waltons sell for crazy money in the US.

Gary

[Joe]

I agree with what David says in post three in THEORY. Unfortunately experience gives me doubts.

A few years ago I noticed that one of my bed legs had been nibbled. I treated this but thought that as the beetles would have now gone elsewhere there'd be no further damage with or without treatment.

For the following couple of years I spotted beetles crawling up my bedroom wall in the flight season and new fras on the carpet — so much for treatment. This is the first year when I haven't spotted any.

Late last year I painted my bedroom and took down a painted plywood shelf. The back edge of this had also been badly attacked.

In addition to that I saw a few months ago that the handle of my copper posher, which lives in the bathroom, had holes in. OK, a bathroom is relatively humid but mine is less so than most as I live alone so create far less steam than would a family.

The bed leg really needs new wood splicing in but I don't have a suitable moulding plane to match the profile. I suppose it would be possible with a scratch stock but it's out of sight and there doesn't seem much point until I'm sure that the wood-munching little so-and-sos have found a new billet.

— Joe

[Mark Hennessy]

Goes to show that the chemicals don't work

How far in to the wood will they soak? That surely depends on the wood, plus how it's been treated? And how long do they remain effective once the fluids have evaporated? As far as I can tell, the health risks outweigh the potential benefits by quite some margin.

As an aside, it's quite surprising how humid houses can be - especially these modern hermetically-sealed ones!

[FIXITNOW]

perhaps we should follow metal boats
and have a piece of sacrificial ply-wood ?