Foundation Tar as End Sealer???

[DanMc]

I've been building an addition on our place in NH.   One of the nastiest tasks was to shlop foundation tar on the outside of the concrete foundation.  This is the stickiest, gooeist glop you'll ever come across.   It's thick, and one coat covers the concrete.   The one coat seals the wall well enough that as the concrete warms during the day, bubbles form all over from air expanding out of the porous material.

It would seem to me that this goop would be excellent end sealer for logs.  A 5 gal bucket is $50, as opposed to anchorseal, which is $30 for one gallon, and I had to put 2 coats of anchor seal on oak logs that I have to close up all the pores.  

Forgive me, if this has been hashed out before.  I haven't seen anybody suggest this stuff.  Maybe it would gum up up the blade?

[customsawyer]

The advantage of the anchor seal is that it will dry close to clear. This lets you still read the grain in the log to determine the best way to cut it. Another advantage is that the anchor seal will melt off in the kiln. If you brought me wood to kiln dry and plane with that tar on the end, I wouldn't even unload it until you had cut it all off.

[Don P]

Works great, until my wife stopped down at the mill and leaned against a log  :-[.

[Magicman]

This is the stickiest, gooeist glop you'll ever come across.

You perfectly described the reason that I would never consider using it.  

There are Anchorseal alternatives:  LINK

[240b]

tar will separate from concrete when it gets cold ( like negative temps) Try Thoroseal which is a masonry product 
which bonds to concrete Expensive but works.  

[kantuckid]

I read this post and snickered. :D
Then I went outside to put on my workboots and smelled the asphalt plant down the road firing up and remembered this thread all over again :D
You don't want tar on your wood...

[terrifictimbersllc]

I must confess to getting perturbed when customer has colored anchorseal on logs. But I try to keep it to myself.   

If there were tar or thoroseal I would ask them to chainsaw it off first. 

[customsawyer]

TT I guess that is where I was coming from in the last part of my post. It gets frustrating when a customer brings logs or lumber in with that stuff on them. Sure they might have saved 20 bucks over the cost of Anchorseal but at what cost? Someone either has to spend the time cutting the ends off of the logs/lumber or they get to buy extra saw blades or worse yet planer knives.

[YellowHammer]

I remember I had a guy who brought me some logs that he had glopped on tar looking sticky stuff (roof sealer) and when he had loaded the logs on the trailer to bring to me, he had dragged them over the ground and there was a big layer of dirt, grass, and even gravel stuck on the ends.   :D :D  They looked like an ice cream cone dipped in crushed pecan chunks becuause there was so much stuff stuck to the ends.

That was an interesting conversation because I wouldn't cut the logs and he didn't want to trim the ends because the boards would crack.  I said the boards won't crack if I don't saw them! :D

We both compromised, he cut the ends off and I sprayed them with my anchor seal, and no big deal.  When he saw how fast I was able to spray the logs he got aggravated because he had spent quite a bit of time glopping the tarry mess on and I was done quick, so I gave him one of those "I do this for living" speeches.  It was pretty entertaining because he was a generally fun guy.

[DanMc]

Thanks for all the input!  Now I know why people don't use this stuff, and I won't either.  And thanks for not tarring me!

[Bruno of NH]

I used enough monkey dung as a builder to last me a life time.
None of its hitting my mill or chainsaws.

[terrifictimbersllc]

A number of years ago I took a job from a small company that was doing research on  heat shield products. They had a test material about five square feet, which was uneven thickness and needed to be sawn to a consistent dimension I think about an inch thick. There was another guy with a Woodmizer nearby but they couldn't get a hold of him anymore for some reason.

I showed up and set up, and they brought out the piece of material, it would've been nothing if it were wood but it wasn't, it looked like concrete. They said the guy had sawn it successfully before, and reassured me they would pay for blades.

One inch of sawing later, I stopped the mill and looked at the teeth which were already rounded over, it looked hopeless. However the customer said that is what it will do, just keep going. So in a cloud of proprietary abrasive fumes I plowed through the rest of the sheet. I unclamped it and he held it up and was delighted. He paid me for everything and asked if I'd be willing to come back.

Never again.

[moodnacreek]

Logs that are worth end sealing must be done when you shut the chainsaw off as the cracks start right away. Use old latex paint and news paper. In the old  days they used just paper tacked on.