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.

Sassafrass. It smells a bit like root beer.

The wood has with little chambers with oil in them that open up when
you cut, plane, scrape or sand it. The wood is a dead ringer for
chestnut, which in turn closely resembles oak.

It is Roy Underhill's favorite wood because of the smell it gives off
while it is being worked.

--

FF