Favorite Wood Odor/Scent? Worst?

My favorite is cherry.

Not sure what my worst for smell. My worst experience was turning some spalted maple, I found out I'm pretty allergic to the fungus.
 
Real Burma Teak not plantation, Brazilian Rosewood (unobtainium) and Waterfall Bubinga with the worst smell being from Chinese Birch Ply.

John
 
I like Walnut but too much cutting of it can overwhelm my basement shop at times.
Cheap Plywood DOES smell bad.... [embarassed]
Bloodwood was interesting, so were some other Tropical Woods that I bought in small sizes for Turning Projects a few years ago.
Poplar smells okay for me, maybe I'm just lucky with it...
Cedar's nice, both Red and White Oak too.
Purpleheart as long as I don't burn a cut with it... [scared]
The various Mahoganys are okay too.
 
Fresh cut sasafras smells good enough to chew. I like the smell of white oak fresh cut as well as well seasoned.  Cedars (all the junipers) are great smells but they make me sneeze, my nose gets drippy and my eyes watery.  But i like the smell anyhow. 

Elm is the first to come to mind as not particularly enjoyable.
Tinker
 
My favorite wood smell would be either cherry, apple, hickory or mesquite in my smoker loaded with meat, and a close second is a campfire  [big grin]

Chainsawing pine is also fantastic though the sticky tar is a bit of a buzz kill.
 
Favorite is Padauk.  Like working in a perfumed shop.

Least favorite is Hickory.  I find it smells like manure.

[member=61231]HarveyWildes[/member] Where do you source lignum vitae btw?
 
Definitely Huon Pine for a timber I've worked with.. though I did have a pen given to me made out of sandal wood. It sits in a draw and is pulled out periodically and run under my nose in what I imagine is similar to those tv/movie scenes when a fat old cigar is pulled out and passed pleasingly under the nose before being lit.. (I how ever have never lit up my pen)
 
I have been working with ambrosia quartersawn sycamore, smell reminds me of a horse stall. Not very appealing.
 
darn. Saw the topic and thought I would jump in and add Huon Pine, but I see that a couple of other Aussies beat me to it. I keep a nice long curled-up shaving of it in my desk drawer. Of course it now smells nothing like a fresh shaving.

Update: I see that my original exclamatory term was auto-edited to 'darn'. Cute.
 
Santos Mahogany(which is not mahogany at all) by a factor of 100 is my all time favorite. Sometimes I cut a piece just to smell up the shop. Some people call it Cabreuva, it's scientific name is  Myroxylon balsamum. If you get a real piece I think it may fast become a favorite shop smell for you. It's also pretty darn hard(twice as hard as Oak easily) and a nice wood to work with.

Some of the other smells I like are most of the True Rosewoods and True Bloodwood, not the knockoff Bloodwood that smells like a dumpster. Tulipwood has a similar scent I love as well.
 
[member=727]antss[/member] Not poplar?  That's interesting -- it's one of my favorites as well.  I find it smells like popcorn when I cut into it.

antss said:
Port orford cedar
Mahogany
Longleaf heart pine over 100 years old.

Not keen on the smell of poplar or plywood.
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White Oak smell like pickles to me, not my favorite nor do I hate it, but it is fun that certain woods smell like certain things to us. Using so many different woods over the years I can probably identify 20 woods maybe more from their "cut" odor.

 
Edward A Reno III said:
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[member=61231]HarveyWildes[/member] Where do you source lignum vitae btw?
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Sorry - been gone for three weeks - topic of another post.

I've just gotten small pieces here and there when I had the chance.  The biggest piece I have is just slight oversized enough to make a wooden sole for a plane one day.  I have a couple of pieces for turning around 2x2x whatever long.

Interesting factoid - Shackleton's ship Endurance was clad in 4" thick Lignum Vitae to make it tough enough to stand the Antarctic ice.  At one point I figured that at today's prices (assuming that you could even get the boards), it was upwards of two million dollars.
 
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