Reply by Lee Barker

I am eager to try Steve’s finish recommendation.

However, I disagree with him about fir outside. As Oregon goes, ours is a dry climate, though we have rain and snow.

I have a fir deck which is over 30 years old. Never treated with any coating (that just generates constant work). I blow the leaves out of the cracks in the fall to keep moisture from getting trapped.

It is precisely the gray that Sawkerf describes.

To answer your question better Ken, what do you intend to use the beams for?

-- "...in his brain, which is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd with observation, the which he vents in mangled forms." --Shakespeare, "As You Like It"