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Tony, the heating actually drives quite a bit of thick oil out of the plug. That surprised me because I assumed most of the weight would be the mineral spirits (surely some of it is).
With regards to splitting, hardwood plugs split when the INSIDE of the plug gets wet and expands. This tears the drier outside apart. Wood absorbs water (or sealer) primarily through endgrain (where the little tubes that transport water up the tree are open). As people have pointed out, sealing the surface of the plug is less of an issue. Another factor, I believe, may be the grain orientation. If you look at the end grain, the wood will swell parallel to the grain lines, and very little perpendicularly to them. Hence, if the hook holes drill up through the grain lines it exposes more endgrain to absorb water and when the plug expands it will be the sides that bulge out, splitting the plug between the hook holes. I suspect that drilling the hook holes along, rather than across, the grain lines will reduce splitting. We'll see.
As far as sealing is concerned, I like the soaking method better than the applied method since it eliminates missed spots in the hook hole or wire hole. I also worry about this CPES stuff. Epoxy that thin must be pretty volatile and easy to inhale. Many people develop severe allergic skin reactions to epoxy. The same kind of reaction starting in your lungs could be serious and sudden. I'm pretty careless about this stuff, but if using CPES I'd probably wear an organic respirator.
I'm also thinking that this weight gain with sealer may not be all bad. If I time it right, I can bring soft maple up to the weight of hard maple (both end up weighing the same when fully saturated). I think the soft maple is less prone to splitting.
As for the perfectionist stuff. Lots of us suffer from that. Once I saw Paul's plugs I realized I was never going to be that good so I said Fck it and now I'm turning out lots of crap to fish. Feels good.
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