Hi,
I have some tent poles that I want to prevent from weather checking. Currently they are raw wood as it's been too much winter since I got them to apply a finish. Now that the weather is nice, what do y'all suggest. Eventually I plan to paint them, but in the meantime I just want them preserved...
Sparks

I always have used a good water seal like Thompson's Water Seal. The most important parts
of the poles are what stick out in the weather
or touch the wet ground, so paint the tops and bottoms. The poles inside get all smoked up
naturally and creosoted.

You might consider boiled linseed oil, available at any good hardware store. Apply repeated coats until wood won't absorb any more. Provides long lasting weather resistance, can be painted over if desired.

sparks , 10-4 on the thompsons water seal.
i poured it in a 5 gal bucket, then put the poles in it for about a 1/2 day, then swaped ends with the poles they absored a lot of the waterseal,

If your just wanting to keep them from checking and warping until you got around to painting them I'd stack them off the ground on a flat surface in a cool dry spot with runners/bolsters/stacking strips every 10" or so.

I'd paint the end grain on both ends to help keep them from checking and if they were showing a tendency to warp I'd set some other wood or weight of some kind over top of them to press them to your stacking strips. If they ain't real thick pieces a few weeks should get them to stabalize to local equalibrium and be fairly stable. Painting them while they were still green probably won't hurt them, but it will keep them from loosing their exess moisture content and keep them green longer.

Most of my poles are cedar but I have 4 vine maple poles. These darn things get grookeder and crookeder each year.

They were all treated with Thompsons Water Seal but the vine maples will still mold during a week long outing.

I want to replace the vine maples but by the looks of things, that isn't going to happen.

I have one willow pole and as it dried out, the darn thing nearly split in two,sorta folded out like when you open a talo to put more goodies inside. That pole is my flag pole. Willow is such a wet wood that it will always split on you.

I have some small short Cascara poles that I also treated with Thompsons. Those are good poles but its neer impossible to find a large Cascara tree. Load fast and aim slow.

TRY grouping your pole set into threes.
Hang the poles in a tree by the pole tips.
Gravity should straighten your poles over winter
Vine maple makes a premier half/quarter sphere
frame.

I don't have a tree to hang them from but if I left them out for a winter, Thosoe poles would be so water logged and rotton, I'd be looking for new poles.

I live 20 miles from the great Pacific pond and at the southern end of the Olympic Rain Forest. I have all my pole hung in tha garage but not on end, garage not tall enough. Good thing too, wife would probably make me pitch tent and live out there. Load fast and aim slow.

I was a professional boatbuilder for forty years. Them's me bony fidees.

Get some half decent varnish and thin it 50/50 with turpentine. Slather the stuff on your poles on a nice sunny day, a soft breeze is good, too. It'll soak in to beat the dickens, dribble it into any checks. After the poles dry, (that'll take at least a day,) do it again. The poles shouldn't take much this time. After they're crispy dry, rub 'em down with some powdered pumice (available at most paint stores)on a damp cloth to get rid of feathers and dead bugs.

They should now have nice, smooth, easy to live with surface and last about three hundred years, give or take. If you want, you can do this every tenth year or so.

Three Hawks

Three Hawks, You might be just the guy I need to talk to. My old Chestnut canoe needs new wooden trim and seats. Can you recommend where I might get that done? Shoot sharp, Mike

Try surfing here:

http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/

Several of the regulars on this forum are in the Puget Sound area and are "into" small boats, canoes, kayaks that sort of thing. They're just as flaky and friendly as blackpowder people and will probably overwhelm you with information and most likely, offers to help.

Three Hawks, AKA Nordicthug

Thanks, Three Hawks, maybe I'll talk to some of them soon. I did look at some of their subjects and none are quite the same. Anyway, it's a start, for sure. Thanks again, and Shoot sharp, Mike