How prone to checking is maple?

[nakedfeet]

I just cut a bunch (an entire ~10" tree's worth) of sugar maple (Acer saccharum) the other day. It is only sectioned up. I have seven 7' logs. I slathered glue onto the ends, but so far haven't done anything with them.

After work today I plan on getting at least a few of them split up and debarked. After getting the bark off, should I put glue on the back of the staves?

Because of the way the wood is (diffuse-porous, early rings are just kind of lines) it doesn't seem likely to me that checking will be a terrible problem.

It's not much trouble to seal the backs, if I should, but if I do I'll need to go buy a lot more glue/poly/shellac/whatever. If I don't need it, I won't bother.

[Pat B]

I've never worked sugar maple but I'd at least split the logs in half, give them a few weeks then split out staves. If you peel the bark seal the backs well. I like spray shellac but the brush on type shellac works as well as wood glue

[SLIMBOB]

Just did a few Sugar Maples.  Love the wood btw.  I split them into staves, sealed the ends and left the bark on (since last july).  The bark kinda sloughed off when I was ready to work each one.  No checking and no working the back beyond some lite sanding to remove the cambium and clean it up.

[nakedfeet]

In your opinion, should I leave the bark on these? I know it will come off easily now.

The tree was at a neighbors. It fell down living. Bug/woodpecker damage low on the tree. My hope is that it was localized there. Just from my eye the wood looks sound, but I won't know until I start getting into it. So for that reason I'd also like to get the bark off, to see if the outer rings are garbage.

[SLIMBOB]

If it has some damage might as well find out now I guess. As said, I left mine bark on. One stave out of the 4 had a little bug damage. The other 3 were clean as a whistle and easy to work.