Can you tell the wood type just from the smell?

[moodnacreek]

Walnut smells like new $$$$

Yes it does and cedar is the other wood you never loose money on.

[caveman]

Yesterday, while John was in the canoe in the pond looking for some 8' or 16' heart pine logs so we could finish our order, he came across a log that he was trying to identify.

We have live oak, cypress, cedar, pine, and a few others.  He reached down into the water and pulled off some of the bark from the log in question.  He correctly identified it by smell.  It was camphor.  Camphor smells like Vick's Vapor Rub.

We pulled it and will saw live edged slabs out of it.

[Don P]

My wife's folks had a heavily carved camphor "kist", chest, they brought back from Indonesia. Quite a piece, I guess it had started with ~9/4 stock. I couldn't smell it until opened, much like a cedar chest. Then it would clear whatever ailed you.

[Quercusrubrum]

Walking into an industrial spruce mill is interesting I like the smell, but it almost has a chemical smell to it... Like an industrial cleaner. 

Ive never milled aspen, but I love the smell when it is harvested. Kind of musty, but I like it. 

[terrifictimbersllc]

Yes, usually 

[moodnacreek]

Tulip tree has a pleasant odor but only a certain time of year when it also has violet stripes that disappear in the air. Red pine can smell like tomato. Atlantic white cedar has the most pleasant smell but it is faint.

[cutterboy]

The smell of sawn white pine is very nice, but after sawing it for a few days I don't like the smell any more.

[WDH]

White oak and walnut are both very aromatic and distinctive when sawn and they are my favorites.

[Wattwood]

Eastern cottonwood smell like a prewar Gibson banjo case...or the other way around depending on what you're standing next to.

[Don P]

We got burned out and up on WRC. People would come into a house, "doesn't that smell wonderful". In my mind I was thinking, every bug on the planet recognizes that as poison, we aren't that bright  :D.

[DanMc]

Don—. It's not a matter of smarts.  We don't eat the wood. Lol

Glad to see this thread getting some more attention.