In article , donald girod
wrote:

I posted this before and got no response so I'm trying again. A while
ago I used some wood I salvaged from a crate. It was fairly hard, not
terribly heavy, had grain like white oak (very porous), was somewhat
greenish in color, and happened to be very curly--a very pretty piece of
wood for use in a crate. But when I cut it, the basement filled with
this remarkable spicy odor. White oak has a very noticeable and
pleasant odor but this wood is positively fantastic. I encountered a
small scrap today, made one cut in it, and the same thing happened. I
could work with this stuff all day just for the atmospheric effects.
Does anybody know what it might be? I know that if you ever smelled it,
you would never forget it.

Sounds like it could be imbuia (AKA Brazilian Walnut). I used some on a
jewelry box for my daughter. Wonderful smell... The closest I could
come to describing it would be "peppery hashish".

Pix here, the imbuia is the trim:

http://www.balderstone.ca/box/boxclosed.jpg
http://www.balderstone.ca/box/boxopen1.jpg
http://www.balderstone.ca/box/boxopen2.jpg

--
"The thing about saying the wrong words is that A, I don't notice it, and B,
sometimes orange water gibbon bucket and plastic." -- Mr. Burrows