All I know is what I read in Schwing, to paraphrase a Will Rogers quote. According to Schwing, the salt drying process was sold to Browning by Morton Salt Company in 1965 and had been in use by furniture manufacturers for many years with good results. Think about it; the salt never caused the stock finish to lift. I guess the problems with rusted screws in furniture was only with steel screws; brass or stainless would have been unaffected. The process involved heaping salt over 5x5x8 foot stacks of blanks. The blanks at the top were dried, but the moisture that was pulled out apparently created a brine solution that ran down and soaked the lower blanks. So not all wood of the era had the problem.
As for sealing a salt stock, forget it. Replace it and use the old wood for firewood.
