A friend just brought a Hickory stave to me, he wants me to make him a bow. The bark is off and I see a lot of small worm holes in it, maybe 2 per square inch. Will it hold alright as is or should I try to follow a grain or make it as is and back it. Its 2" wide 2 1/4" deep and 72" long. Lots to play with.
Probably powder post beetles. It might be firewood!
I just lost a wormy hickory stave, busted at 20". Tiller was great.
Cut you off a slice and do a bend/break test. Good hickory will take a great bend before folding. Bad stuff will just snap into........Art
WOW, dosn't look good so far. I will "test" a piece and see what happens. Do the powder beetles dig deep into the wood or just 1/4" or so?
They will turn it to Swiss cheese.
I've heard hickory is particularly susceptible to beetles. I know I've lost more than a few hickory staves to beetles....I don't know about powder beetles, but some beetles can go quite deep >1"...What's really fun is carving out the hole and finding the little guy in there knawing away.
Wormy hickory.....BAD.
I tried one bow out a piece that had a couple of worm holes like you described, BOOM!
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/ekrewson/bow%20making/bugtrailshickoryfailure.jpg)