Different strokes! I've made some pipe stems from ebonite rod and my garage stinks for days each time. Working with it on the lathe isn't that bad, but the rough shaping of a pipe stem is mostly done with a belt sander and stinks of burning rubber.
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What Wood Smells the Best to You?
- Thread starter Kent Reisdorph
- Start date
Different strokes! I've made some pipe stems from ebonite rod and my garage stinks for days each time. Working with it on the lathe isn't that bad, but the rough shaping of a pipe stem is mostly done with a belt sander and stinks of burning rubber.
Nutmeg is nice
Cherry, white oak, and apple.
Olive - wine corks
Cocobolo - Very spicy
Walnut, Cherry - reminds me of early wood working projects - memories
Pine sap - if it just wasn’t sticky
Tulipwood - I think memories again
Cocobolo - Very spicy
Walnut, Cherry - reminds me of early wood working projects - memories
Pine sap - if it just wasn’t sticky
Tulipwood - I think memories again
Hemlock. It smells spicier than pine and milder than cedar. Like a pine forest at Christmas time.
It tears out if you look at it wrong!
It tears out if you look at it wrong!
Tib G Shaw
AAW Staff
In the AAW Gallery of Wood Art's education room we have a number of wood samples in small tins for people to smell. It's often a surprise to guests that woods have such a diverse range of aromas.
A few of my top likes are hinoki (Japanese cypress) and palo santo. Lignum vitae and cherry are up there too. But for a favorite I would need to say the sweet aroma of green-turned birch.
(Least favorite? Fresh elm...)
A few of my top likes are hinoki (Japanese cypress) and palo santo. Lignum vitae and cherry are up there too. But for a favorite I would need to say the sweet aroma of green-turned birch.
(Least favorite? Fresh elm...)
Cherry is the best . I don't like to turn it but red oak reminds me of campfire season.
By far and away, my fav is amboyna, followed by camphor, olivewood, tulipwood and redheart in that order.
Mesquite is one of my favorites.
Tim
Tim
It all has the smell of money to me
Green African Sumac. Smells like the kitchen when Mom is baking pies!
Chocolate.
West Coast cedars, Alaskan Yellow, Port Orford, Western Red, any of 'em.
White cedar that grows in MN and north into western Ontario east smells the same as the other true cedars ( Note the eastern red cedars or aromatic cedars scientific name is juniper Virginia or something and the smell is totally different )
Black Cherry, Beech, Apple are my top three. I would like to try Sycamore but haven't located any.
Japanese Lilac Tree is enchantingly sweet..........and different from any of the Lilac bushes.........I first got a log in 2009 and just recently got some more log chunks from the City Forester. It darkens beautifully with oil and sun exposure.
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iliahi, aka sandalwood. Still grows on the north shore of Kauai.
I’m on the West coast and also love cedar, especially yellow cedar. Had a kind of allergic reaction to the dust recently however
wet black birch...love the Wintergreen smell and sassafrass(ahhh-chooo)
Cedar for me.
For me Brazilian rosewood, true lignum vitae, south american "incienso" and lately I came accross some very red Canarywood that smells like fresh strawberries. Most of the woods smell nice when you turn them green.
when we cleared an area for our house the excavator piled the logs and stumps off in the edge of the woods. this included several sassafras trees 6 to 10 inches in diamter. For monthe the intense sweet fragrance of the sassafrass roots was almost intoxicating. the following year when i got around to cutting them up, the cot roots started the intense fragrance all over again. i chopped a piece of root and made iced sassafras tea. soo good.
Tulipwood. Smells like roses
For me it is Sassafras, sure makes the shop smell sweet.
I had forgotten, but I did like Imbuya. Especially if the table saw blade was getting a bit dull, it kind of reminded me of hashish.... Haven't smoked anything in 35 years, but I do remember that smell....
robo hippy
robo hippy
I cut down a couple of smallish sassafras a few months ago (maybe 10" diameter but 40' tall). I only turned one bowl with it. I'm about ready to give it another go.
It's hard to beat Cherry. Koa smells great but the smell reminds me of how much money is hitting the floor. If I got free Koa it might feel different. On the other end of the scale is pin oak..... nasty.
Here in eastern North Carolina, we have a lot of sweetgum and I turn a lot of it. I like the smell of sweet gum in both the green and dry state. It is not the easiest wood to work (twist, turn, shrink, cup, bow and crack) but it cuts like butter and has some amazing figures.
Here around Laredo, the "monte", or wilderness, turns white with the blooms of Blackbrush, Acacia or Vachellia ridigula. It grows very slowly because we don't get a whole lot of rain. But the wood, especially the bark, when you get it into a glowing ember, is the sweetest incense kind of smell I know. Asher, you made me laugh in mentioning mesquite. If you go to south Laredo on Sunday, the neighborhoods are thick with mesquite fire smoke of barbecues, almost like the whole area is on fire.
Yellow Cedar.
I cut some sassafras the other day. The garage still smells spicy.
Yes,hemlock really gets fuzzy....so much of it in my area,but pretty hopeless compared to other choices.
I really like the spicy smell of thuya.
I've got you all beat... Sassafras! my whole shop smelled like an A&W Root Beer stand!
African paduk, smells like birthday cake. Lignumvitae for it's unusual spicy smell.
Pine, for its rustic smell.
But above all, eastern redcedar.
Pine, for its rustic smell.
But above all, eastern redcedar.
Quite possibly yellow cedar
In my case, it's usually money out of the bank.
Imbuia for the win! If I've recently made any imbuia chips, shop tourists are immediately intoxicated to the point of seduction.
I know it might sound strange but my favorite wood smell is Ash. I cut down a huge Arizona Ash a couple of years ago and processed the whole thing. My first time taking a tree to turned items. Now, every time I turn Ash it reminds me of that first experience.
Well I had to look that up Arizona Ash: seems like there is some competition between the ash of Texas and the ash of Arizona! Up here in Ithaca we're drowning in dead ash from the borers and the fungi, so much that you can't take a walk in the woods without hearing an ash topple over. I split some of it for fast-burning firewood, good for starting a quick fire so you can switch over to oak or hickory in the stove.
I have turned handles of ash, all very dry from being in the shop, where I keep it between 35% and 50% humidity. I never noticed any distinctive aroma, but I understand the associative power of first experiences and aromas. That tree stump probably smelled pretty good when the tree hit the ground without taking out any buildings or yer pickup.