Salvaging 100 yr old wormy pine - help

[alantope]

I have an opportunity to acquire a bunch of wormy pine salvaged from a 100 yr old barn / farmhouse.

The boards are roughly 2.5 inches thick, 8 inch wide, and various lengths. They have been stored semi-outside (basically a covered shed) under tarp, for several years.

In doing some research, a couple questions come up:

1. What happended to the worms? Are they still present in the wood? (I'm not concerned about any dead ones - just those that might be alive, or hatch.)

2. Moisture content.

What's the opinion in this Forum? The safe route would seem to be taking the wood to a kiln, both to dry it out, and kill any critters that might still hanging around.

But is that really necessary? Can the wood be used, as is? (Obviously, I can put a moisture meter to it). I can also store it indoors (on stickers) for further air drying, if needed, but don't want to bring it in if there's a concern about bugs.

BTW - the wood is local, so it has experienced our recent cold spell.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Alan

 

[mshel]

Having made several pieces out of old barn wood (SYP), I would bet a steak dinner that there are still some critters in the wood. Most likely Powder Post Beetle. I would also look for signs of termites. If you have the resources and want to use this wood, your best bet would be to have the wood kiln dried. Like you said, it will dry the wood and also kill the critters. It might be a good idea to take one of the suspect beams and open it up to see how infected it is. Some times the boards look good on the outside and after you plane them down, you start seeing the aftermath of the critters.


Mike

 

[scsmith42]

With pine, in addition to sterilizing it you will want to "set the pitch" before using it for WW projects. You can build a simple insulation box and sterilize the wood yourself, but to set the pitch it is usually heated to 160F for 4 hours.