Techniques for protecting stakes in the ground?

[Grelinette]

It is an ancestral technique in Japan which bears the name of Shou Sugi Ban (焼 杉 板) and / or Yakisugi (焼 杉).
There are lots of videos on YouTube, including this one that sums up the thing, no frills:

I just watched this video which is also very interesting!

We see that after having burned the wood with a small blowtorch and having scraped off the excess charcoal, it passes a oily liquid then do a quick burn.
We do not know what it is as fatty substance but I think that it is surely aboutLinseed oil because this oil is often recommended to treat exterior wood against bad weather. Besides there is a recipe: 1/2 Linseed Oil + 1/2 Essence of Turpentine, and some add a dash of White Spirit. (probably for the taste! )

[Ahmed]

Yes, it is usually linseed oil and the small blow of the torch is used to thin it and thus better penetrate the wood fibers.

[Moindreffor]

Ahmed you who know you in trees, what do you think of alders to make stakes? it is rot-proof in water, so should it last a little longer in the soil?

[Grelinette]

I'm a bit skeptical about the archaeological remains: a piece of wood that has long stayed in the ground ended up having this charcoal appearance without the fire being there for anything ... In the extreme, the traces of posts of wooden dwellings are identified by the blackish circles which contrast with the color of the natural, lighter soil.

I confirm this statement to you, given to me by an archaeologist who came to my home to study the remains of a medieval castle! He explained to me that many remains of medieval wooden buildings were partly destroyed but well preserved thanks to charcoal. At the time, in the Paca region, there were many local lords who spent their time attacking their neighbors to expand their kingdom, and a "tradition" was to burn wooden buildings that did not interest them, which makes vestiges partly destroyed but well preserved.

To finish with this charcoal archaeological anecdote, I tell you again the one that had amused me a lot, and told by the famous archaeologist who came to my house: while excavating a mound in Provence, archaeologists began by finding a heap of beams and burnt boards entangled and planted with arrowheads of bows and crossbows: they deduced that it was the remains of a local battle followed by a fire, as was the tradition.

Then by removing the burnt woods that had been kept for over 1000 years, they found an old sideboard lying on the ground that the burnt woods had covered and kept. They delicately removed the buffet, which allowed them to better date the time (Middle Ages, 1000 years AD), and under the buffet, surprise! ... a kind of misshapen mass resembling a large dung of cow , itself protected by the buffet and the pile of wood and earth!

Gently cow dung was removed to be sent to the CNRS labs to better identify the animal from which it came, because in Provence, at the time, we knew that there were pigs, sheep, goats, but no cow, so mystery! ...

Result of the analysis of cow dung .... it was a big bread dough!
It was undoubtedly placed on the sideboard to inflate, then in battle it fell to the ground, then the sideboard fell on it, and the whole was covered by ash and coal from the burnt frame of the building that fell collapsed on top of it, which has kept everything together until today!

[Ahmed]

@ Moindreffor:
The transposition of your reasoning is incorrect: a lot of things are rot-proof in water, but what makes the poles rot is precisely not that. The rot of the stake (if I may say so!) Is observed in this specific part which corresponds to the comfort zone of the mushrooms: from ground level up to 10-15 cm, approximately: this is where both the required humidity (neither too much nor too little) and oxygen (which decreases rapidly with depth). If we carefully consider an old stake, we see that the top is fairly evenly very cracked, with a section overall respected, that there is in the area affected by the rot a strong shrinkage often causing breakage. extraction, and the end of the stake which then looks like a carrot, since the section returns to its original dimension. This last dimensional variation makes the extraction painful, since this part is a wedge (or anchor, as desired). So for me, alder which is a "white" wood is not suitable.

[Did67]

Another, healthier possibility consists in roasting the wood: the heat transforms part of the constituents of the wood and, with a certain reduction in mechanical strength, makes it almost unassailable by fungi and not very sensitive to the recovery of humidity.

..

Do you know if there is a difference between that and the "retified wood" (which is clad in part of a new building in the bahut where I worked, that's how I came to know this term).

[Ahmed]

The experiments on the roasting of wood (carried out in a technological institute in Clermont-Ferrand, if I remember correctly), since they led to practical and commercial applications generated this neologism of "retification" to better qualify the process. therefore, there is no difference between these two terms regarding what is in question here, except that "roasting" is a generic concept.

[GuyGadebois]

The best solution for me is to use locust.

The Robinia purged of sapwood (heartwood with trace of sapwood) has, in general, a resistance greater than 20 years of guaranteed service life, the expected service life is much higher when the exposure conditions correspond to the air class of use 4 (ie situation of class of use 4 out of contact with the ground or burial in the ground).
We have even been able to observe lifetimes of 55 years of Robin's vine stakes.

http://www.alternabois.fr/faq/quelle-es ... tres-bois/

[Rajqawee]

Here, the shepherds who want to make their fences last use a fairly infallible method: they recover metal tubes (so good ... sometimes they are traffic signs, sometimes real recovery ...) that are planted in the ground. The stake is cut in a more or less conical way to get stuck in the steel tube.
No contact of the wood with the ground therefore.

[Moindreffor]

@ Moindreffor:
The transposition of your reasoning is incorrect: a lot of things are rot-proof in water, but what makes the poles rot is precisely not that. The rot of the stake (if I may say so!) Is observed in this specific part which corresponds to the comfort zone of the mushrooms: from ground level up to 10-15 cm, approximately: this is where both the required humidity (neither too much nor too little) and oxygen (which decreases rapidly with depth). If we carefully consider an old stake, we see that the top is fairly evenly very cracked, with a section overall respected, that there is in the area affected by the rot a strong shrinkage often causing breakage. extraction, and the end of the stake which then looks like a carrot, since the section returns to its original dimension. This last dimensional variation makes the extraction painful, since this part is a wedge (or anchor, as desired). So for me, alder which is a "white" wood is not suitable.

that's why I asked you the question, rot-proof in water does not mean anything with respect to the ground, thank you for your precision