Borer Attacks

I have a wooden vase that has been attacked by some sort of wood borer, the vase looks to of been finished in wax. If I cover the vase in some sort of varnish will this stop the borers? If so what product would ya recommend for removing the wax and what type of varnish should I apply to it. Also what would be a good filler to fill the holes in.

Borer attacks!!!!

Rob what have you been up too??

Al :eek:

I'd be getting a bit afraid about now, if I lived in a house made of wood!!

How old is the vase? Was it properly seasoned?? Has it recently come from an exotic country??

Have you heard of West Indian Termite?

Maybe Oz is right.

:D :D :D

P

Varnishing or painting it wont stop the borers.
Soak it in mineral turps for half an hour. This penetrates all their galleries and kills the borers and their eggs.
You may or may not need to refinish it after soaking.

Yuk - I hate turps especially if it's injected down the the tunnel where I live with a syringe Yuk. :mad:

If you feel comfortable killing wood borers then turps will do the job :D :D

Wood Borer, you look like the sort of bloke that likes the turps. :D

Grunt,

Yes, in the common sense of the word but not literally as ingesting mineral turpentine. :D

Sealing the holes does not cut off the borer's life essentials. My understanding is that the external holes are where the borers have flown off. Probably to breed so they can infest the next tasty bit of furniture. Putting turps down the holes is useful to eliminate any remaining borers.

I will give the turps a go, the vase came from indoneisa and was fumigated and passed by customs. When I took the vase out (it spend 6 months in transit in a fumigated container) I didn't notice any holes or saw dust, about a month later I notice them with a bit of saw dust around them, the vase is currently sitting in my freezer. I haven't see any other signs of borers in the area.

You might try giving the vase a zap in the microwave. I think about two minutes at full blast will kill borers and their eggs. Not too much more than this as you run the risk of cracking the vase.(You can do it in twenty second blasts checking for cracking as you go) If the holes are about the size of a pinhead it could well be lyctus borer which I think is endemic to Australia and will attack just about any light wood. I am not too keen on the turps method because it is very hard to get liquid all the way into every gallery and it leaves your vase smelling of turps. Besides the little buggers might like getting on the turps. Good Luck.

I let it soak in turps for a week and it's currently drying, the holes were about a 1mm in diameter, hopefully the combination of turps and freezing would of killed them.
Thanks for the info.