dummy of the year award

[soy]

Winner winner chicken dinner. Or looser as  the case may be here ...do to improper storage I am now down at least 80% of my wood supply ...did not debark for fear of checking stored inside ..
Well started de barking as I got done with work early ...some were infested with grubs. While othershad dry rot...losses so far HACKBERRY-14 staves HICKORY-20 staves BLACK CHERRY-8quarters RED ELM-6staves WHITE ASH-4 quarters        on the bright side the cherry and elm I can probably go to the red wood and salvage them.....lessons learned the hard way are often rememberd best, just wish I did not have such a large volume gone...well back to crying and being sick    

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Bugs will work on wood kept indoors just as much and even more so because of the comfortable temps. I've heard that spraying with insecticide will keep them at bay, but never tried it myself. I lost several fine osage staves because of wood boring worms and didn't know they were there until I noticed a small pile of yeller sawdust under each stave on my garage floor. Had them standing in a corner from winter into spring and when I peeled the bark off the staves looked like swiss cheese, all completely shot to crap. So I can feel your pain.
Only way to be sure is to debark ASAP and seal the ends and this is the only thing that has worked for me so far, but I'm still guilty of letting it lay too long before getting after it even though I know all too well what can happen from procrastinating.

[soy]

Hear ya there ...gonna be a little different process here from now on.

[osage outlaw]

Sorry to hear about the staves.  I lost a bunch of osage when the bark slipped and they checked all over.  Since then I peal and seal every stave.  Its more work upfront, but its worth it.

[straightarrow]

That's enough to make a grown man cry. Man that really stinks, I truly feel sorry for ya. You say improper storage... mine are stored basically the same way. How could this been prevented?

Jon

[PEARL DRUMS]

Stop it soy! Your scaring me

[lesken2011]

I haven't acquired any staves, yet, but thanks for the heads up. I don't think I realized they weren't save indoors.

[Del the cat]

Yeah that's a bummer.
I guess it's ol' Mother nature slappin' us down as a reminder we ain't quite as smart as we think... if only she could tell the politicians and bankers.
Del

[gstoneberg]

At my place, if it has bark on it, it gets sprayed with insecticide.  Once sprayed if stored indoors it's good.  If stored outdoors it needs one reapplication a year.  My shop is not bug proof, learned that the hard way.  One night I was sitting in it and realized I could hear something.  It was borers in a mesquite log.  Took me about a week to figure it out, and even spraying the log down with bug spray did not kill the borers inside.  Make sure the bark gets treated and you stop the borers before they start.

George

[jermcramp1]

Uh oh, Ive got about 15 pecan staves I cut last summer with bark on still....Gonna have to hump it and get them shaved tonight! dang it.....

[Pat B]

Leaving the bark on whitewood not only invites bug damage but also rot. The longer the moisture is trapped in the whitewood the better chance for it to take hold. Generally you can remove the bark from whitewoods without the checking problem of osage or locust, etc. I still spray whitewood staves with shellac to seal the naked back.

[jermcramp1]

Come to think of it, I bet thats why my ash blew at floor tiller.

[Josh B]

Man! That sucks!   On a the brighter side, suddenly I don't feel so bad about blowing up my warbow  . How's your outside stash holding up?  Josh

[k-hat]

Sorry to hear about that, been there too.  If you don't mind a little work, you can probly still save those hackberry staves by chasing a ring.  I've removed up to 3/4" from one to get to a good ring for the back, and just about finished another that's looking good.  Even found a few borers that i had to work past anyway to get past some brittle wood.   I don't find it really any harder than chasing a ring on osage, just different.  Once you get to the inner rings, they can be decently thick.  I hog off all but the last few rings with a hand plane set course, but i'm sure there's other ways.  If they're pretty straight maybe you can take a band saw and rip off the outer wood by faceting?

Just saying . . .

[toomanyknots]

Hey, I thought I won that award already! I usually win every year... That sux really bad about those staves. Ya never know what's under the bark, or in the bark, or what little eggs are on the bark...

"Only way to be sure is to debark ASAP and seal the ends and this is the only thing that has worked for me so far"

Darn straight every time. Cut in the spring / summer when the sapwood peels off easy, make bows in the winter when the humidity is low.