Treated wood

[Sawduster]

Can any one give me info on working with treated wood ? my neighbor just gave me an armload of deck pickets and pieces of same left over from building ( you guessed it ) a deck. they look perfect for compound ornaments and such ....with a couple of quick rips through the table saw to square off the bevel on one corner
........good idea or not ?

[Marcel in Longueuil]

Only one piece of advice: Don't!

Depending on the treatment your wood has, it can contain some carcinogenic materials as well as some other nasty poisonous stuff. The dust is a health hazard.

They now have new wood treatments based on copper sulfate. I believe, and it's less harmful, but you need special metal fasteners for it since it erodes the regular zinc plated ones. Does that give you a hint to how bad it still is?

They are taking out the old stuff from kids playgrounds now because they think it may hurt them, and replacing it with the new type of treated wood.

One way or the other, you shouldn't use that stuff to scroll or make anything for the indoors.

The dust is too nasty for the lungs, and even if you wear protective gear, it will still get to the folks you love in the rest of the house.

Why risk it?

Regards,
Marcel

[CanadianScroller]

Years ago I worked in an arena, the the rink boards, behind the plastic ones, were made of ply. The plywood would rot dues to the hostile environment of the rink. We would cut out the bottom foot of the wood and replace it with treated wood.

We painted the stuff by hand. I always broke out in hives and sneezed for weeks. This was long before safety was an issue.

I don't even like sitting on pressure treated wood now.
If you have ever burned scraps you will see all sorts of weird colors in the flames.

I would prefer not to use it, sorry.

[Rolf]

The old stuff had arsenic in it. DON'T use it. I wouldn't use the new stuff either. I wear a dust mask when I cut it outside.

[dale]

If he was happy to give it to you is in many places it is ilegal to burn.
Thus hard to get rid of.
And yes the older stuff was treated with arsnic.

dale

[MacS]

Additional Information

Sawduster,

To answer your question on pretreated woods, read this article.

http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/pages/h00127.asp

[Sawduster]

Thanx everyone for keeping me " out of the weeds " on this one , and especially you, Mac , for an extremely informative article
I knew it was too good to be true
The pickets have been placed with the outside-structural-use-only pile behind the shop