Woodworm scare

The new audio kit first noticed at reference 1 has served well, for more than five years now. For some of which time I have been thinking about doing something about the spike problem.

If you click to enlarge, a short spike, one of four, can be seen front left, under the loudspeaker stand base. Spikes which I imagine are designed to give the loudspeaker assembly firm and level standing on a fitted carpet. While standing on softwood flooring is apt to result in punctures, leaving holes which looks rather like woodworm holes. Even with a modest amount of moving about, over the years one gets quite a lot of woodworm holes.

A few weeks ago, we had a bit of a panic and thought that some of the holes really were woodworm holes. Perhaps the mature woodworms thought the spike holes were a fine place to lay eggs? So off to buy some woodworm destruction fluid. Robert Dyas, Travis Perkins and Wickes all fail. Perhaps the demise of brown-wood furniture has meant the demise of most woodworms. Finally run down a litre of something suitable in Homebase, soon to be Bunnings (a member of the Wesfarmer family). Couple of coats liberally applied to the two patches of holes, being careful to keep the windows open. The stuff smelt entirely carcinogenic and goodness what else ogenic.

Then moved onto the construction of a couple of low stands to take any further damage from the spikes. Stained and sadolinned they did not look too bad, although the sadolin took an age to dry. I then thought that it might be an idea to fix three pads or prongs to the underside of each stand, giving the stand a non-rock tripod finish, as opposed to the wobbling, not to say rocking finish one might otherwise have had.

Screwfix had some screw caps, but not quite what I wanted, so off to Homebase again, which I found to have the best selection of nails, screws, bolts, fittings and fixtures that I know around here. Just the thing for the amateur who does not know exactly what he wants, but is open to suggestions arising from extensive stock. Settled for some substantial bolts, brace and bitted the necessary holes and then seated the bolts with a wood adhesive, adhesive which won't stop me getting the bolts out, should need arise, but which will stop them working themselves out.

All in all, a rather rough bit of carpentry, but it will serve. And Homebase is now the DIY emporium of choice. Let's hope that the upcoming Bunnerisation does not do too much damage. See reference 2.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=reisner+sevenoaks.

Reference 2: https://www.bunnings.com.au/.