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.


Hey, thanks for all the suggestions. The crate was from a freezer made
in Canada if we are to believe the labels, and the wood was definitely
not sycamore (which I have some of, and which is comparatively odorless,
and it doesn't look anything like this stuff). It was just ordinary
pallet wood, nothing exotic (though these days, god knows where anything
comes from--did you all see Doonesbury in yesterday's Sunday paper?)

I like the sassafrass hypothesis--it is exactly as described, the odor
fills the room and lasts a long time. However, I just checked it out
using google, and the color seems totally wrong (grain is possible
though). My piece was definitely greenish, while sassafras is supposed
to be brownish.

All I have left is this small stick (still smells great, however), and I
don't think I can take a picture of it.

Does anybody have a link to a site with tons of wood sample pictures? I
could probably identify it based on appearance if I could see a
picture. I have a couple of books but they are not very complete.