• Congratulations to John K. Jordan winner of the June 2025 Turning Challenge (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Bobby McCarly for "Hemostatmorphodon" being selected as Turning of the Week for July 7, 2025 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

Endgrain Sealer

RonC

RonC

Joined
Nov 9, 2009
Messages
20
Likes
0
Location
Ocala, FL United States
I know the general purpose of why endgrain sealer is used on endgrain. But my question is about when I purchase either a piece of wood from say Woocraft or any of the on-line stores quite often the pieces have been completely covered with sealer. Can I than assume covering the complete piece is to ensure that these pieces don't split, dry uniformally and that these pieces are to some degree relatively green and not kiln dry at purchase?

Thanks/Ron
 
Ron I've been asking that question from various wood dealers because several of the things I turn require dry wood. The wood has been coated to try and get it to you without checks. The problem is they often don't know how wet the wood is when they get it. It's been stored for who knows how long and shipped and then stored some more.
So far what I have found is that no one is able to tell me how green it is. I assume it is green when I get it, or at least not dry enough to use for my purposes. What I do is scrape the wax off of the side grain areas and put it on the shelf to dry some more. If I'm going to use it full thickness I let it sit for a year or more.
If I'm going to use them for boxes I rough out the shape and then let it dry while weighing it. I may microwave it if I need it sooner.
Now that being said, I've turned a fair amount of this kind of wood from BigMonk lumber and use it for wine stoppers. Most of it hasn't been sitting in my shop very long and I haven't had any checking problems on wood that size. This tells me that the wood is at least what I call seasoned. That means that it's lost a fair amount of water before it got to me.
I know that may not be the answer you wanted but I haven't been able to get a good answer either.
 
I have never seen kiln dried lumber sealed it's not necessary.My thoughts are it is mostly for shelf life. I have been looking at the same burl for over a year now at my local Woodcraft store. When I buy blanks from Turningblanks.net allot have free moisture still in them so I know they were sealed shortly after being cut. I think it all depends on who your getting it from.
 
Last edited:
Complete coverage

HOW is probably more significant than WHY. In a bulk-processing operation, it's simpler to dip the whole piece vs. coating just the ends. And also simpler to direct the operation that way. BTDT, in other industries.
 
Ron,
I find that most of the woods that are covered in wax, (head to toe), at the wood stores are coated that way because they are exotic species, or burls that do have moisture content to them. I live in a VERY dry climate (about 11% humidity), and some of these species check very badly on the side grain if they are not sealed. (Burls, with wild grain, also crack and check without being sealed).

Depending on your climate zone, you may want to scrape off some of the wax and dry them on the shelf, or build a low-tech kiln, (convection drying box), to speed up the process. But yes, generally they are "green" to some degree, and the wax protects them as they travel around to their final destination.

Katherine
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top