Timber treatment to log roll lawn edging?

[Huge]

"That long ago"? 1968?

[Keith]

down to 'creosote works'

"Creosote Works When the creosote works first opened in 1887 it was sited on the Methil side of the river, near Methil docks. As the docks became busier and grew the creosote works moved across the river to their present site. Today they specialise, as they have always done, in the treatment of telephone poles."

[Huge]

Precisely so - s'what I meant, innit?

[Keith]

Absolutely, specifically didn't include you in the quote by name coz I was answering the question "were they soaked in Tar" as well as "that long ago?" Sorry if the injection of a few facts threw you off guard ! (insert appropriate smiley).

It's possible to navigate most of Fife by smell, Kirkcaldy has Forbo-Nairn (lino), Windygates has Diageo (whisky), Leven has the Creosote works and Inverkeithing has the sewage plant.

[The Natural Philosopher]

But nowhere does it say that they pressure treated telephone poles.

My point was not that cresosote wasnt't around then, (obviously it goes back to victorian times or so) but that pressure treating wasn't around

40 years ago.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Now show me where it says that telephone poles have ever been pressure treated.

[Frank Erskine]

If I may quote from "Telegraphy" by TE Herbert, first published 1906, although this edition was published 1920:-

The creosoting process formerly used consists in injecting creosote into the wood by a process of vacuum and pressure. The quantity of creosote to be injected varies, according to the specifications of different administrations, from 8 to 12 lb. per cubic foot for telegraph poles, the Post Office specification being 10 lb. to 12 lb. The poles to be treated are placed in a closed cylindrical vessel, an air-pump is set to work, which produces a vacuum in the cylinder, opens the pores of the timber, and, to some extent, serves to draw out the moisture. Creosote, heated to a temperature of from 100º to 120º F., is then introduced into the cylinder, the air pump is stopped and the pressure pumps are employed to force the creosote into the wood.

"Considerable economy in creosote is effected by the recently adopted Rueping process, which is applied after the poles have been seasoned. Air is forced into the wood at a pressure of about 75 lb. to the square inch. Creosote is next injected under greater pressure, and then an air pressure of about 225 lb. is applied, thus driving the oil in to a considerable depth..... Only about 4 lb. of creosote per cubic foot is left in the timber."