favourite flavour of wood ?!?

[Paul Held]

I've always liked Walnut and Paduk and really disliked zebrawood and spanish cedar. Paul

[Al Bois]

I generally dislike using any pine in my projects, but love the smell!

For real wood, my favorite would have to be cherry. Ala George Washington, I actually did cut down one of my grandmothers cherry trees when I was a kid. Right on her front lawn while everyone else was inside. Yes, the saw was my first real tool, which I got for Christmas that year. Ever since that day, I've had a taste for bloo.... I mean.. cherry

[George Leicht]

I milled some elm last night. It has a faint, but pleasant aroma. It sort of reminds me of old fashioned horehound candy.
George

[Ron Blaise]

But I do know that Cherry (Eastern Black) smells very sweet when you are milling or sawing it. The most aromatic wood I have ever worked is Eastern Red Cedar. I have a couple of hundred feet of that drying in my shop and have to air the place out before I can work in there. Walnut has it's own nutty smell, rather pleasant too. Green Oak (to me) smells like horse piss when it's drying so that stuff stays outside for a couple of months before I bring it in.

[Mike Wenzloff]

My two favorites are Imbuia--smells like spices--and East African Camphor--probably because of it smelling like Vic's Vapo-Rub

Cedar and Pine are on the list too.

Take care, Mike

[Mike Leone]

I trimed out my basement workshop with sasafress, the smell is heavenly.

[John Branam]

I really like walnut, red oak and cypress. I have built to many things out of MDF lately and really look forward to using real wood again.

[nic obie]

Even though I don't use it much, I enjoy the smell of pine.

I don't like to work with oak. To me it smells like baby poop

[Nancy Laird]

Flavor? I don't chew it, but to me the very best-smelling flat wood is fresh-cut red oak. I can always tell when LOML has been cutting oak in the shop because of the smell.

I've found a couple of nice-smelling woods in pen blanks, but I can't for the life of me remember what they are called. One of them is a creamy wood with reddish/orange grain streaks through it, and the other is orangy with dark grain. Both smell just yummy.

[Al Willits]

Geeze I hate being a newbie here...haven't had a chance to play with all the woods yet, but I liked the pine I made the flower boxes out of.

I can say I wasn't to impressed of the Basswood I played with, reminded me of being in a swamp...

Al

[Alan DuBoff]

Besides wet white oak dust, what do you use to get the stain off your fingers?

Kevin,

I haven't had a big problem with it, but worse than my hands are my clothes, my wife is often unhappy when she cleans them...she seperates the clothes something like this...whites, colors, Alan's shop clothes. I think that moisture or sweat from your hands have a big part to do with it, and in your case it's most likely sweat on your hands that mix with the dust.

Walnut dust for instance, if I wash my hands and wipe them on my pants (I know, we're not supposed to do that;-) will leave difficult stains with the dust on the clothes, which can cause some strong remarks from my wife at cleaning time. Even so, if I pick up a glass of ice tea in the shop that has been sitting, it will have sweat on it as the ice melts, and I'll wipe my hand on my clothes also...This is not unique to walnut, even last weekend I was working with hard maple and had a pair of duck bib overalls (brown?) covered with dust, I wouldn't say my wife was thrilled to clean those. Just wait until next week, I start blacksmith instructions...will be curious to see her face when my bib overalls come back with coal soot all over them...

For my hands I use abrasive soap and good 'ol elbow grease, but the bigger problem is when cleaning an old woodworking machine that has been rusted over completely, that makes a huge mess, and the stains will often not come out if gotten on clothes. Even on the hands, soap will often not get it all off...in that case I use an old standby...time...I let it wear off... Most clothes I use in the shop can't be worn to work afterwards. (this is a hobby for me)

Walnut can bleed sometimes into a lighter colored wood that is laminated next to it, like maple for instance. I find that hand planes work good in that case, rather than sand paper (I generally prefer hand planes to sand paper, but I resort to sand paper in cases where I can't get a clean shaving with a plane).

I have been working with walnut some, but not as much as I would like, and my love for it goes way back to high school where I carved a bowl on the lathe for my Mom, which she still has to this day. Great stuff to work with. I'm using 8/4 walnut on a bench I'm building, had been planning to laminate 2 pieces of 8/4 together for the ends of the workbench, and dovetail them together. Hopefully hand planes will be the trick for that.

EDIT: I have some air dried walnut that doesn't smell so good when cut, but I still like working with it. I wouldn't say that walnut is my favorite in the sense of how it smells, it's how it works that I admire.

[Frank Pellow]

Hey we are supposed to be talking about taste here, not smell. That's why I mentioned spruce (and, more specifically, spruce gum) in my earlier reply. But, most people seem to be thinking smell, in which case by far my favourite is red cedar.

[Frank Fusco]

Frank, your mention of pens reminds me of a pen I made out of Amboyna Burl last year, it was certainly one of the nicest smelling woods to work with, a pleasure. Not very common and pricey, but the smell is ever so wonderful.

Amboyna burl pens also sell well. The smell of money is wonderful also.

[John Fry]

I trimed out my basement workshop with sasafress, the smell is heavenly.

Yup! sassafrass it is! That sweet root beer smell is superb.

[Lee DeRaud]

Just about any wood tastes good with a little wasabi spread on it.