Not really. The finish industry will have you believe that you in fact do need to apply a seal coat.  But Cedar is not fir, or any other species for that matter; there are inherent properties that make cedar a desirable exterior wood. Particularly the grades spec’d by Prowell (clear, kiln-dried, vertical-grain, with 20 growth rings per inch to insure a mature harvest). This and our construction methodologies make applying a finish a purely aesthetic decision which will have no impact or prolonging the life of your product.  This is all discussed on the Recommended Finishes page.

With that in mind, however, many folks do in fact prefer a finish, whether by us as a pre-finish in the spray shop, or on site. Site finishes of any penetrating, absorbing quality can be applied immediately upon arrival. Layered finishes, such as paint, solid-body stains, or any finish with a 2-part sealing top coat must allow the gates to acclimate to the local climate–usually about 3 weeks.

*Is this really Charles answering these questions, or Adlai, whoever that is.

Mister Means. Please. Simply Adlai is a tad too informal.
Anyway, I don’t understand why people would be surprised in the event it were Charles himself. You think he’s above answering the phones or emails? Above taking the time for those posing their FAQ’s?

*Don’t you have any hobbies? You should write a book about . . . you know, about building a business and all.

Hobbies: Charles, of late, has taken up competitive ironing and finding some relish in the progressions and accomplishments of this and how it’s similar to competitive lawn-mowing: the smooth plane of what’s been accomplished, to the creases and wrinkles of what rests ahead. There is physical poetry in the smoothing action of an unruly crease.

Regarding the business, well . . . the affection is relegated to what tomorrow offers and not reliving yesterday . . . so a book on building a business is best left to someone who has stopped building their business and actually has the free time for such an engagement. Someone who prefers rehashing the past over furthering the present.

Not to mention words. Books require words. There are sooo many words. Have you glanced at a dictionary recently? Culling from such an offering to build a sentence, and then another, and yet another.
Take, for example, the word Set. This word alone has 430 different meanings.

Moreover, there exists this little dictum: Interfering with a process ultimately alters that process. This is an eternal truth, thumbed I believe by someone like Nietzsche or Camus.  How being too aware of the yesterdays distracts from the todays. Being too aware or self reflecting on the moment will in turn alter the moment. Taking too many photographs on your vacation will leave you with a memory of those photographs, instead of the actual vacation.

*So you answer the FAQ’s instead of taking photographs?

Charles owns a camera, housed to the left of the chop saw in the right corner of the top drawer beside a medley of seldom used tools–folding rule, calipers–fitted at turns into the shell of those hands belonging to Charles’ step-father George, and his father Wyman, and Wyman’s father C.E. when the tools were new back in the 1880’s. The camera, sidled up to this history is a latter-day impostor with more functions and settings than words in a dictionary, which by the way is an Oxford English Edition stashed in that same drawer. Belonging to Charles, who loves rummaging through this dog-eared paperback stuffed with sooo many words. The camera. Well, the camera was once new and is now very old, outdated the day after it was bought as a digital innovation way back when. Today, the cameras are the domain of Ben, whose latest purchase weighs in at the cost of a small economy car.

Returning to words, Charles and Ben have developed a keen eye for the very very rare example of literacy in the general public. Living for these beacons of civility, scouring your letters for the faintest hope of an elevating trend in the general, abbreviated slop that passes for sentences and thoughts. So for the most part, a staff member reads the week’s questions to Mr. Means, who culls the more readable excerpts and dictates his answers to Ben’s daughter Faye who approaches the keyboard as if it were a child’s toy piano. Data entry. One letter at a time with frequent breaks to tie scarlet-ribbon bows in her father’s hair and in this fashion, entire afternoons can be lost without a trace.

*I can imagine you in an armchair, a shawl draped over your feeble knees, smoking your pipe, an understudied disciple at your side.

Huh? I believe you’re only allowed one question. It’s been four or five questions already. You’re getting me confused. This isn’t how it works. It’s supposed to work different and now it’s not and . . .

*How do you know that? I could be four different people.

I think I have to go now.

*Jeeze. How old are you? Are you like 90 or something?

I want to go home now.