Thank you, Ed! You caused me to look up borate, boron and borax in wickipedia. Finally, some things I really never knew about borate are coming into focus. For some reason, I never associated borate with borax. Guess the curiosity just wasn't there. However now, living just a little SW from the town of Boron, I've developed a kind of history curiosity about borax and the 20 mule teams. They are part of the history of this living desert.
Cockroaches around and spiders in your shop? Wow! Do you have rattle snakes too?
P.S. I found a black widow last night when putting out the garbage. I've seen her web in the daylight, but guess she only get into the web at night. She stayed quietly in her web, hoping for some kind of creature to get entangled. Even her quarry are few and far between here. Guess they all come out at night! These 45 degree nights and 100 degree days are good for all of us.
Getting rid of insects
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osx-addict
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I sprayed most of the innards of our house with Borrada-D (same as Timbor but cheaper).. I've used both the liquid and dry variants but would stick with the dry version for this purpose as the liquid variety creates a icky mess afterwards.. You just mix it with warm (IIRC) water and put in a sprayer OR you can submerge the infected wood into a bath of the prepared solution and it will do its work and soak into the woods pores. If a bug eats the wood it will ingest the borate product and work as a slow-acting stomach poison (according to the material on DIY pest control).. Anyway, it's supposed to be great for termites as well which is why I sprayed the interior parts (when it was down to the studs) of our house with it while we remodeled last year.
Rick
S/W of Los Angeles, CA
1983 Mark V model 510 (SN#140061)
S/W of Los Angeles, CA
1983 Mark V model 510 (SN#140061)
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osx-addict
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sophiewhitesman
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Re: Getting rid of insects
The worm holes are almost always old wood-boring beetle activity, usually powderpost beetles in barn lumber like that. The good news is most of the time the bugs are long gone, since the wood dried out years ago and they need higher moisture to stay active. The way you check is to look for fresh, fine sawdust (frass) sifting out of the holes. Old holes are clean and weathered. Fresh frass means something's still in there.
To be safe before you turn it into a mantle, the simplest kill methods are heat or a borate treatment. Heating the board to about 130 to 140°F all the way through kills any larvae, but it's hard to do evenly on a 10-foot piece without a kiln. The easier route for most people is a borate product like Tim-bor or Bora-Care, brushed on and allowed to soak in. It penetrates the wood, kills active larvae, and leaves no surface residue or color change, so your patina stays intact. That's the part most people worry about and borate is the one treatment that won't touch the look.
Are the holes showing any fresh sawdust, or do they look old and clean? That tells you whether this is a real treatment job or just cosmetic history you can seal and enjoy.
To be safe before you turn it into a mantle, the simplest kill methods are heat or a borate treatment. Heating the board to about 130 to 140°F all the way through kills any larvae, but it's hard to do evenly on a 10-foot piece without a kiln. The easier route for most people is a borate product like Tim-bor or Bora-Care, brushed on and allowed to soak in. It penetrates the wood, kills active larvae, and leaves no surface residue or color change, so your patina stays intact. That's the part most people worry about and borate is the one treatment that won't touch the look.
Are the holes showing any fresh sawdust, or do they look old and clean? That tells you whether this is a real treatment job or just cosmetic history you can seal and enjoy.