You have discovered a truth of wood technology, but there may be a bit still
hidden from you. End checks are generally self-limiting. Bound water loss
caused the fibers near the air to shrink, and where there wasn't enough
cohesion with surrounding fibers, they produced a gap. The run of the check
can be limited by replacement with unbound water from within, or with bound
water from wood with higher moisture content. At a point inside the wood
loss and gain equalize, and no more checking occurs.

Now for the bad news, you may have unseen checks which have closed when the
draw from outside diminished, allowing replacement from within. Wood's
still cracked, you just don't see it. It's waiting for you to establish
another moisture gradient from a new interior to a freshly created surface.

Be careful.

"mac davis" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:16:59 GMT, "Andy Reynolds"
wrote:

My father in law has a large wood pile of ash, some larger pieces, but
they
have all been there for quite a while and the ends have several cracks.
Is
there a chance that any of this wood will be good for turning or would I
just be wasting my time? Even though it's cracked, can I salvage it with
CA
or epoxy or something?

Thanks,

Andy

I just turned "non-store bought" wood for the first time this week...
we camp a lot and I usually have a few pieces of firewood in the back
of the truck.. and this one piece of oak/ash/whatever has been calling
to me..
Thinking of the advice I've received here, I decided to take it in and
saw on it some... it turned out that the cracks on the ends only went
in about 1/4 to 3/4" and the rest was fine...