How to Get Cheap or Free Hardwood Lumber

Step 4 Deal With Bugs

After you stick your wood the bugs will start dying off.
They need air and water. Sticking the wood lets it dry out, reducing the water. Slugs and snails will disappear.
If you seal the wood all inhabitants die cuz it cuts off the air. Epoxy is good for this. Linseed oil has worked well for me also.

Throwing your wood in sea water until it sinks is a good trick to try.
But don't leave it there. Borers such as gribble and teredo only live in salt water. They die when the board is put in fresh water or taken out into the air.

The live beetles in these shelf brackets gave me fantasies that the insects would chew through them, dropping my axe collection on my head.
Then Jesse Hensel told me a trick his dad used. Just put the wood in the freezer and the insects will die. Or maybe the trick was really "do nothing" since they live in Fairbanks Alaska and everything there is a freezer.

Comments

[woodenparrot]

Freezing does not kill bugs. They just go dormant until they thaw out. Don't believe me? Here is a trick that David Blane has used. Catch a live fly. Turn a can of air upside down so it blows out liquid and spray the fly until it is frozen. He then would have it planted it on a car windshield where he would find it and announce that he would bring a dead bug back to life. He goes over and picks up the fly and blows on it to warm it up and revive it. It works and everyone is amazed. Hmm... Maybe that should be an Instructable.

[jwaterman1]

duration is key here. long cold snaps kill the pine beetle that plagues Colorado's evergreens in the mountains... ever drive to Leadville and notice none of the trees are yellow and dying? its because they get below freezing for weeks on end during winter vs sliverthorne, vail, and apsen which are not cold long enough.

[Dr. No]

"Or maybe the trick was really "do nothing" since they live in Fairbanks Alaska and everything there is a freezer." What a trip, I live in Fairbanks! And yes, everything here is a freezer.