Hi, my buddy just cut Down 2 nice 6 ft long 12 in in diameter logs yesterday. I can't get there till tomorrow to seal ends. Is this to late? I read where if you don't seal ends as soon as it hits the ground, its to late. Is it to late after 2 days?

Thanks , Ernie

Should be ok. Staves are long enough anyway. Just in case you need to cut off any checks. Jawge

Look at em. If there are no checks, seal them and go on about your business. If they're checked, they won't be too deep in 48 hours, so trim the ends off an inch at a time until the checks are gone, then seal them.

Ok thanks, is a check where wood is separating? Starting to split?

End checks are splits in the grain that originate at the cut. As moisture leaves the wood cells at the cut end, they shrink. The log inches up from the cut still has full sized cells. This variance causes stress and a split occurs. Coating the cut end stops moisture from rapidly exiting the cut end, and stops checks from starting. Or so I've been told. lol

I never thought hickory would check until it started checking. Best be safe.

Runner, wanna bet? I just brought a hophornbeam log home a week or so ago, split it, reduced the staves somewhat and put one coat of shellac on the ends. I worked a bunch of overtime and didn't make it back out to the garage for several days. When I did, each and every stave had checks in their ends. Luckily, they weren't too deep yet and I was able to cut an inch or two off of each end and remove the damage completely.

When I put the shellac on this time I watched it more closely and it was sucked into the pores in less than 15 seconds. I ended up putting 4 coats on it just to be sure as I can't afford to keep cutting the ends off these things :^)

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