I think you’ll find they say solid hardwood although it has an oak like look to it, our minds fill on the blank because of the company name.
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Just to update on this thread, for anyone else who might find themselves in a similar situation.
Because the clicking continued, despite my efforts, I turn to the SF resident expert and had a very useful phone conversation with @Rob_le_Pest who gave me the courage to investigate the clicking dresser further.
On Rob’s advice I scraped away the veneer of the shelf (edited - it’s not “veneer” but an outer layer of wood the larvae have left) and found complete sawdust underneath. Scraping along another channel I found a capricorne (so Rob tells me) lavae. (see below). I can hear clicking elsewhere in the dresser but I now know what I’m dealing with and it all feels manageable. I was beginning to think a thousand pounds worth of dresser was going to be burnt in the garden! Rob’s suggestion is tap with a screwdriver and use a stethoscope (which I’ve bought off Amazon) and locate where the wood sounds hollow. Dig down into the channels that they make, hopefully to find the grub itself, clear out the sawdust, spray with Xylophene. Obviously any grubs found will be disposed of. Ditto any adult beetles I find in the house.
Interestingly, I read several articles on the internet claiming they seek out damp wood - nothing damp about our dresser that they are happily munching through.
Thanks very much for you help Rob.
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Thank you for your kind words, I’m always happy to help, if available!
Just be careful when tapping the wood and using the stethoscope at the same time… then again, you’ll only do it once 
Good luck with the treatment.
PS, the grub photo is already on a Pest Control forum as a Q&A. No-one’s guessed it correctly yet 
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That quip by Lennon “Ringo is not the best drummer in the world. He’s not even the best drummer in the Beatles”.
Friends rented a cottage in the Oxfordshire countryside. On our first visit we heard a steady knock knock knock.
We all (5-6) of us had been for some years and still were messing about with navel gazing of the esoteric kind - Gurdjieff, Sufism etc.
The sound was exactly like someone slowly pacing along the corridor upstairs. My friends, in states of unreasonable belief in something ‘spiritual’ being responsible, fearfully climbed the stairs.
They were gone some minutes while I, Mr Sceptical, sat downstairs. The knocking continued all the while.
My friends came down again, now fully convinced that an entity from the invisible world was responsible.
“Sorry”, quoth I. “Nothing so fascinating. It is the weight in that Grandfather clock striking the door on each swing of the pendulum.”
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Just to update - I’m learning the hard way and as someone else may need help at some point I’ve changed the title.
I do Oak Furniture Land grave injustice. What I thought was veneer on top of a pressed composite is in fact the larvae damage. I have now broken up the shelf enough with a chisel to get back to solid wood - the rest is their sawdust. See photo below. I’ll edit my post about OFL above.
I am hearing more knocking elsewhere in the shelf and realise that there are several active larvae and neither my tapping with the handle of a screwdriver, nor the stethoscope are sufficiently sensitive to find their channels. I suspect because they are small at the moment.
We have two OFL dressers and at present, so far as I can tell from the noise the larvae are making, they are only in the upper shelving. I am giving up trying to find the larvae because it only needs one to escape detection and we could be faced with a worse problem. So, unless anyone has another fool-proof solution (and I can tell you spraying isn’t it) the tops of the dressers will be taken outside and burnt.
At the moment, so far as I can tell the bottom side boards are not ticking and we will keep them. If at any point they start to tick they will go too.
You could be right Mat. 
What have I learnt?
First of all, any beetle with long antennae I see running around the floor will now be under my heel.
And secondly, the minute I hear tapping to do something about it and to try and find it, but in all likelihood, probably remove the furniture, if that’s what it is , and not waste time spraying and hunting for larvae.
Here’s hoping the bases of the dressers are grub-free.
@Rob_le_Pest for your info.
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Are the two dressers the same type, if so can you re use parts of the two to make one top piece.
Nice idea Griffin but not identical unfortunately - one is larger than the other. And give that both have been infected I can’t be certain that new larvae won’t emerge. Not worth the risk or the effort of doing it.
Rob, I remember reading some time back that ethylene glycol antifreeze was good on standard wood worm, any thoughts?
personally not a fan of thier products but in thier defence I am assuming that they don’t have outlets outside the uk so your furniture was brought to France by you or someone?
Hoqw long has it been here and from being made to now have the little pests been asleep for x years?
Has your stethoscope detected what language they speak?
Could they be french and taken a liking to/or dislike of non EU furniture 
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far be it to ban a sandwich or a piece of well farmed uk meat or a bit of cheese. France should ban UK furniture, who knows whats hiding in there waiting to attack fine french furniture.
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I will ask my fournisseur and get back to you asap. He’s French and it’s a Sunday, if you get my drift!!!
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You’re not wrong there, I have recently treated termites on the Allier (03) Cher (18) frontier (sic). The previous home owner had brought her furniture from Portugal.
Dutch Elm, Ash Dieback, Oak Processionary moth, and even termites have been found in the UK, so Cross-boarder contaminations are a serious problem.
I’ve just put my name to an article for a UK/FR magazine regarding xylophages.
NB. ‘Put my name to’ I helped them write it but they insisted on including some things I was uncomfortable with.
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Yes John, 10 years ago, shipped from OFL. I doubt now that the beasties came with it. We live in a 300+ year old house and I’ve seen capricorne scuttling around the floor in the past, but not realised their significance. I think they couldn’t believe their luck when they found a piece of new English, relatively fresh wood to lay eggs in and around, compared with the rock hard ship’s beams we have in the house itself.
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I found what looks like a fresh woodworm infestation in our Morvan house - not in original timbers, but in the mahogany stair rail that’s obviously recent. Thanks to this thread I found Xylophene in a local brico and gave them a good dose.
@Corona
Here’s the reply to your question.
These are my suppliers of all things regarding wood treatment. What they don’t know isn’t known . Hope that helps.
“Hi Rob,
Never heard of that…
I know some people are inclined to use strange things for this use. But never heard of anything good nor bad about ethylene glycol…
Sorry”
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Believe it or not, it’s taken until now to finally sort out the two dressers in the kitchen with capricorne larvae. OH was in the UK for a week so I took the opportunity to do the big dresser in situ while there was no-one else around wanting feeding or to boil a kettle. I did as you suggested Rob ( @Rob_le_Pest ) and brushed on two coats of Xylophene. I thought all was well, but the clicking/chewing noise has started again. Is it worth doing another coat? Or do I now just wait for the lavae to come across a part of the dresser that has absorbed the Xylophene? I’m assuming they will all die eventually. Grateful for advice please.
If the tin says 2 coats then that’s all you need. A third coating is only wasting time and money, it doesn’t make it any more potent.
The next step will be to find the critters. A sththoscope will pick up the minching, then use a bradawl to scoop them out. It sounds easy, but it’ll drive you crazy, I mean, really crazy, and paranoid 
🫨:exploding_head:
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