sime42

Buggered if I'm going to leave the heating on all night just to keep them at bay. I'm not spending money on the dirty little blighters. Thanks anyway for the idea Dan. The copper tape idea on the other hand is a very good one. I use copper in the garden and it works a treat. Out there though I make my own copper rings out of cut and flattened plumbing pipe, much cheaper and sturdier, lasts forever.

Coming into the house. Quite often when I go downstairs in the morning I notice slime trails all over the place. It's happened previous years, normally around this time I think. Lounge, kitchen, downstairs toilet. We can put up with them leaving trails on the floor, but it's getting quite rank when they're in food cupboards and on the worktops and chopping board. Anyone else experienced this? Any solutions? I looked around but can't find anywhere obvious that they're getting in. I thought maybe the airbricks to ventilate the floor so put slug pellets around these outside but no improvement. I hate the foul things! It's bad enough that they try to eat all our garden produce, now they're after our food in the house as well.

Sht mate. Plenty of information on their paid for service option though.

Used a lot in the US as fencing material, due to its durability and strength.

Nice wood to woodwork with too. Attractive, even grained, finishes well. Only downside it's hard, don't bother trying to handsand!

As he said. I bought a bag a couple of years ago from b&q or homebase, I forget which. When I got them home and unwrapped I found they were rank! Dripping wet and mouldy even. No way they'd burn. I was outraged, and still am! It was the fact that they had the cheek to label them as SEASONED firewood logs, or some such. They are either ignorant of what seasoned and firewood actually mean, or they are taking the piss by taking advantage of the customers lack of knowledge. They weren't cheap either. I just don't understand why they are allowed to get away with it. What about trade description and all that? I only did that once out of desperation when I first fitted the fire, before I established my own season and store supply of logs. Never again. On the other hand I also remember getting a couple of bags from Wickes;- they were much better, bone dry. Though still expensive obviously.

Very well said that man. I just wish that more influential people like Trump could read and act on that accordingly.

https://www.shiply.com Have you tried this site? It gives you the choice of a huge number of couriers by allowing them to bid for your delivery job. I used it to find a courier for an anvil. I reckon you need a small man plus van type of company.

Bugger! This was what I was afraid of. Yet another example of why you can't believe what you read on the internet. Thanks for the reality check Mick! Looks like I'll have to take a harder line than Id hoped on any holey timber. I've no plans to sell anything I might make, but I'm doubtful that you'd ever get sued over woodworm, even in today's ridiculously over litigious culture.

Thanks guys. Useful advice here. Good old Arbtalk. I think the way I'll go is to get some Borax in to start with. It seems better suited to preventing insect infestation rather than treating existing problems. So I'll use it for any fresh untouched timber reserved for woodwork. Not sure of the feasibility of treating structural timber in the house as the vast majority is inaccessible. But anyway I read last night that woodworm in the house is not really too much of an issue as they only go for damp stuff so outbreaks shouldn't be too damaging or long-lived. Hope that's correct! This refers to the most Common Furniture Beetle type, Death Watch is a different kettle of fish alltogether. Ill also try to roast the wood worm buggers out of the original stuff from my father. And then maybe do with the borax as well. Just need to find a folk with a kiln now, another thread required I reckon. Interesting stuff Borax. Lots of household uses historically. Currently in vogue for making Slime, (the kiddies favourite.) I'm very tempted to make some myself, just a case of mixing some Borax solution into some PVA it looks like from a very quick scan. That link you added Macpherson, is for 20 Mule Team Borax. An interesting story in itself. They used to ship it out of Death Valley in 10T waggons pulled by 20 mule/horse teams!

Ah, I just realised;- did you mean a firewood drying kiln? 60 degrees sounds a bit high for seasoning wood.

Yep, I was aware of Borax as an option to consider. I know it's been widely used for a long time and has the big advantage of not being too toxic. I read somewhere the other day though that it's only effective in treating the top few mm cos it only penetrates that far into the wood anything deeper than that and it doesn't do anything.

Good idea with the timber kiln Squaredy. I hadn't thought of roasting the buggers! Just need to find one near here now though. What kind of people have timber kilns? Would sawmills or timber yards use them for seasoning wood?

Evening all So my brother and I have recently acquired a stock of nice decorative timber. This was kept by our late father as raw material for furniture making and wood turning. Most of it he got many many years ago, but over recent years I've been adding to the stock from the arising from interesting tree surgery work. There's all sorts of species like Oak, Ash, Yew, Elm, Cherry, Apple, Laburnum, Robinia, Mahogany, Cedar, Walnut .......... Some of it is 2 - 4in planks, some whole trunks up to 12in, some offcuts, some turned down blanks. Its always been kept dry so no rot but unfortunately a lot of it has been afflicted by woodworm, some quite badly. Luckily most of it seems confined to the sap wood and interestingly the tougher stuff like old oak heartwood, mahogany and Robinia is barely, if at all, effected. We forced ourselves to be ruthless when we sorted through it so probably discarded a 1/3 to a 1/2 of it, a heart breaking task I can tell you! Some of it is, was, really beautiful, such as the burred walnut for instance. We're intending to keep it ourselves now for future woodworking projects. The obvious question is what to do about the woodworm? How best to treat it to stop it increasing the damage to the already infected timber and also to stop it spreading to other "clean" wood. My brother seems to think that the wormy stuff should be strictly quarantined, I'm not sure how cautious we need to be. What approach do all you other keen woodworkers take to woodwormy material? What are your preferred treatments? Or should I give up now and consign it all to the log pile? I hope not. This may be paranoid android but should I be concerned about the wood worm infecting structural timber in the house? The workshop is in the garage, an integral part of the house. Being 1930's ish the timber used in the building was probably not treated. How contagious actually is wood worm? Ta If I manage to get the lathe installed before everything is consumed and turned to dust I'll post some pictures on here in future!

I can't agree more with everything you've said here.

"Cheap"?! Last time I noticed they were ridiculously expensive......£5 - £10 for sometimes a handful of wet logs! I was forced into buying a couple of bags from B&Q once. They were shocking;- almost dripping with water and so damp that they were covered in mould. I was outraged, more so because it clearly stated SEASONED LOGS on the bag. I'm not defending this new legislation BTW. Seems pretty stupid to bugger up the majority of decent firewood producers/suppliers just to catch a few offenders. B&Q, other DIY outlets and most garage chains are big businesses. Is this another example of big business getting away with too much again?

I find a small hand axe or hatchet is useful for stripping the rank ivy off. And a bill hook, (straight bladed), for really shaving off the smaller strands. Also useful for prying away from the trunk. It's normally quite soft when live in my experience, though I like edge tools to be razor sharp if possible. I normally strip off about 12" all around the trunk to leave a completely clear band. I don't normally bother to remove the rest of it from above as it all dies off after a few months and it's a horrible job anyway. Just cut the band as high up the trunk as you need to avoid the buttresses.

I'll second that. You won't believe the difference compared to any other hand saw the first time you use a Silky. Just be careful though! They can be deceptively dangerous. Also as Kriss says, learn how to use it, or lopers or secatures, to prune trees and shrubs correctly. It makes a big difference to the ongoing health of the subject and the final look of the job.

Yeah, I used to frequently run my Stihl Kombi all day doing strimming and/or hedge trimming, stopping only for refueling and clearing up. It loved it! And Stihl does! They're proper work horses. Definitely worth spending the extra for a proper brand in this case. The other thing about cheaper brands is ergonomics. I got pssed off with the expense of Stihl at one point so thought I'd save some money and get a Ryobi hedge cutter. It was half the price and started and ran pretty well to be fair, but the vibrations were a killer. I had numb hands after only about 10 minutes. I could only stick it for a week or so and then had to sell it and buy a proper one.

A good garden shredder, electric. As big a throughput and thickness capacity as possible. Or a real, but small, diesel/petrol chipper. A Wee Chipper in fact! See the popular thread of the same name here on Arbtalk. Makes waste disposal so much quicker and easier if you're working small scale. The Stihl Kombi-system is great as far as performance and reliability and versatility goes. Expensive though.

Cheers mate. Yeah I was thinking about that, I do use a TM.

Carl1991;- how do you attached the long strop to your bridge, exactly? I occasionally use the same approach or attach one of my normal strops to the bridge. It always ends up too crowded though as it all has to clip into the single ring..I've also tried using the spare hole on the Hitch Climber but thats too crowded as well.

Climbing line. It's a useful technique for long branch walks and far out horizontal work.

Don't forget about redirecting your main line

One of these micro-pulleys is pretty cheap. Well worth it to improve the climbing experience. Even if you don't upgrade the friction hitch knot just yet you can still use it with the dirty old Prussic. The rope slack tending and knot advancing function of a pulley make the whole system so much nicer to use. It frees up one hand for some of the time at least to start with which is a huge advantage. To save money you can buy a whole length of friction/prussic cord and just cut off the required lengths as required. And then tie your own fixed eyes on both ends. Cheaper than buying ready made eye-to-eyes. And even if you get a Hitch Climber pulley it's still much cheaper than a Zig-Zag!