Shopsmith Forums

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.

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.

Very informative, Rick! Thank you for that information!

I should note that for any of you that are here in So-Cal, I've got both the liquid and dry variants of Borrada-D that I wouldn't mind getting rid of (not for free though -- this stuff costs a lot of $$) if you're local..