Chestnut.
Coolest or rarest wood you have milled
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Herman the German
ArboristSite Operative
It looks a lot like walnut . That's a nice clock did you make that?
Thanks, yes it does look like Walnut but in real life its a different hue. Yes I make lots of Clocks.
It’s nothing I’ve milled or even cut down, but it’s a very rare timber.
I grew up in Malawi, lived there for my first 12 years. Whilst there my parents had some boxes made for assorted items, including a box to hold a mahjong set and I made a cribbage board. The timber used was unique to one mountain, Mulanje Mountain, and found nowhere else in the world. Or so I believed growing up. The timber in question = Widdringtonia whytei, commonly known as Mulanje cedarwood, but renamed “Mulanje cypress” by the University of the Witwatersrand.
Visually it doesn’t stand out much but the aroma is AMAZING; the 35 year old boxes still retain the smell.
Another interesting (to me at least) and related snippet is that I now live on the Isle of Wight, where a few years ago I was doing some ground clearance around an old property. I was cutting through some old footbridge timbers when I caught a whiff of the above mentioned aroma. Boy did that bring back some strong memories! Saw was stopped and I pulled out the timber I had just cut into.
It was about 12ft long and gently curved, about 4” x 4” at both ends increasing in a handmade manner to 8” x 4” in the middle and it had within it several old handmade nails. We all decided it was probably something that came off a mast, towards the top...and that the ship had been wrecked off the Isle of Wight and washed up timbers repurposed.
When I explained to the customer about the rarity of the timber he decided he should look after it but he did let me keep the little piece that I almost cut off, which released the aroma and alerted me to its nature.
That little block (that’s about 1ft long) is in the truck and I use it to hold the bar up when I sharpen my chains on site.
Whenever I do I smell Malawi and my youth.
I grew up in Malawi, lived there for my first 12 years. Whilst there my parents had some boxes made for assorted items, including a box to hold a mahjong set and I made a cribbage board. The timber used was unique to one mountain, Mulanje Mountain, and found nowhere else in the world. Or so I believed growing up. The timber in question = Widdringtonia whytei, commonly known as Mulanje cedarwood, but renamed “Mulanje cypress” by the University of the Witwatersrand.
Visually it doesn’t stand out much but the aroma is AMAZING; the 35 year old boxes still retain the smell.
Another interesting (to me at least) and related snippet is that I now live on the Isle of Wight, where a few years ago I was doing some ground clearance around an old property. I was cutting through some old footbridge timbers when I caught a whiff of the above mentioned aroma. Boy did that bring back some strong memories! Saw was stopped and I pulled out the timber I had just cut into.
It was about 12ft long and gently curved, about 4” x 4” at both ends increasing in a handmade manner to 8” x 4” in the middle and it had within it several old handmade nails. We all decided it was probably something that came off a mast, towards the top...and that the ship had been wrecked off the Isle of Wight and washed up timbers repurposed.
When I explained to the customer about the rarity of the timber he decided he should look after it but he did let me keep the little piece that I almost cut off, which released the aroma and alerted me to its nature.
That little block (that’s about 1ft long) is in the truck and I use it to hold the bar up when I sharpen my chains on site.
Whenever I do I smell Malawi and my youth.
Herman the German
ArboristSite Operative
That's a super cool post. Being reminded of great times in your past is always great.
I was given some koa that was downed & beginning to rot. The wider pieces have some punky streaks but the curl is solid. I can't complain, it will all be some nice wood.
made_of_stihl
ArboristSite Lurker
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