CREOSOTING TIMBER FOR ESTATE PURPOSES. 93 



"M^-'^ 



X. Creosoting Timber for Estate Purposes. By George 

 Leven, Forester, Auchencruive, Ayr. 



The preservation of timber by one or other of a number of 

 systems has been attempted with more or less success for many 

 years; but while admitting the value of salts and other substances 

 for certain classes of timber, it is generally allowed that what is 

 known in commerce as "creosote" is the best preservative of 

 wood to be used for outside work. 



The method of creosoting mostly in use in this country is what 

 is known as the closed cylinder system; but while this method 

 can be adopted profitably on extensive estates, where the plant 

 may be kept continually at work, on small or even on 

 medium-sized estates the capital expenditure is too heavy, as the 

 smallest plant costs at least £300 to set agoing, 



A simple and very efiicient system of creosoting has been in 

 use on some estates in this district for a number of years, the 

 initial cost of plant being about one-sixth of the above. An 

 egg-end boiler, 23 or 24 feet long by 3^ feet in diameter, with 

 an bpening cut along the upper side, is carefully built up 

 with fireclay and firebricks, surmounted by a cement coping 

 to within a foot of the opening, this being necessary in order 

 to withstand the heat to which the boiler is subjected. The 

 boiler thus rests on two butts . or bridges, with a furnace 

 and fl.Ue running underneath, the draught being regulated by a 

 damper at the foot of the chimney-stalk. The furnace is made 

 6 fe6t long, in order to take in slabs and other rough wood. 

 At the end opposite the furnace, and from the lowest point of 

 the boiler, a pipe with a valve attached discharges surplus oil into 

 two cow boilers (of 200 gals, capacity each), connected by a syphon 

 and surmounted with a hand-pump to return the oil to the boiler. 

 In a case with which the writer had to do, where the boiler was 

 second-hand, and advantage had been taken of an existing chimney- 

 stalk which had been erected in connection with a saw-mill, the 

 cost of the plant, including all material and labour, amounted to 

 £54, 14s. 



The process is as simple as the plant. It consists of placing 

 the wood to be creosoted in the boiler, covering it with creosote, 

 bringing the temperature slowly up to a little over the boiling 



