[...]... bronchial asthma, and nausea Teak dust can cause swelling of the scrotum and oversensitivity to light If you’re having a bad day, try working with American mahogany, black cherry, and iroko; the sawdust can cause giddiness Dust from the jacareuba tree can cause loss of appetite, and dust from the milky mangrove can cause temporary blindness White cypress sawdust can lead to nasal cancer and swelling of. .. woodworkers can often sniff out sassafras, red cedar, and Douglas fir; and avid woodworkers with a keen nose can detect the subtle aroma of catalpa, teak, and other woods they commonly work Cedar is perhaps the most commonly harnessed wood fragrance today You can find it in board form as cedar closet lining, in stick form as incense, in flake form as sachet, and in liquid form as a room freshener and massage... heartwood ranging in color from an imperial orange to a royal red, and a strength that rules the charts in nearly every category It’s put to majestic uses, often turned, carved, sculpted, and inlaid Much of it winds up as cutlery handles, since its density makes it capable of standing up to nearly all forms of culinary abuse, and its natural oiliness allows it to be soaked, washed, and rinsed eternally... hardwoods store There you can be amused by an entire freak show of woods a display that includes the arboreal counterparts of the fat man, Leopard Girl, and Tom Thumb Weight and density There are over a hundred species of trees and shrubs in the world with wood so heavy that they’ll sink Specific gravity is a ratio used to compare the weight of oven-dried wood with that of an equal volume of water A. .. have never seen The slab is from a fifty-thousand-year-old kauri tree, mined from the bogs of New Zealand { 2} A SPLINTERED HISTORY OF WOOD FIFTY-THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD WOOD LIVES AND BREATHES AGAIN The route a slab of wood needs to travel to get from 48,000 BC on the North Island of New Zealand to AD 2006 in Ashland, Wisconsin, is not an easy, inexpensive, or clean one “Originally we thought some cataclysmic... create a piece with { 22} A SPLINTERED HISTORY OF WOOD depth and striking figure, they often reach for their stash of quilted and quittled maple Wavy, ribbon, and curly grain are by-products of spiral grain that reverses itself periodically as a tree grows to produce something called interlocked grain Visually these boards have a washboard effect, and as the varied grain intersects the wood surface and... 1936.6 Oak galls, a reaction to a parasitic wasp, were used for creating ink Charcoal was the fuel that powered most of man’s early industrial efforts, and there was no finer wood than oak, with its high heat content, from which to make this charcoal Brickmakers, glassblowers, ceramists, and iron makers all used prodigious amounts of oak charcoal It was used for refining sugar, boiling soap, and burning... whip up a wicked acorn stew, the Turks a hot acorn-based drink called racahout, the Spaniards an acorn liqueur and olive oil substitute One California-focused study concluded that acorns could have fed Native American villages of up to a thousand people and that two to three years worth of acorns could be gathered and stored in just a few weeks—not surprising, given that a single large oak can bear up... Bullets that didn’t help his saw any { 12} A SPLINTERED HISTORY OF WOOD When asked if he’s a woodworker himself, Hearne explains that he’s an okay woodworker, but with customers like Sam Krenov, Sam Maloof, and Wendell Castle—superstars of the woodworking world— he’s surely hesitant to call himself a great one So what’s the most expensive board foot of wood this “okay woodworker” carries? Rosewood burl:... $350 a board foot At that price, wood to make a 1-inch-thick top for a standard 3-foot by 3-foot card table would sit at $3,150.4 OAK: THE BREAKFAST OF CIVILIZATIONS When I started researching this book, I vowed not to use the blanket phrase “No other wood/ tree/woodworker has played a greater role in the history of mankind than _.” But, damn, I came close with oak Though perhaps a bit overzealous . piece of wood available in the United States”— and I never found any challengers. The slab measured over 20 feet long, { 4 } A SPLINTERED HISTORY OF WOOD A slab of fifty-thousand-year-old kauri. No rth Island of New Zealand to AD 2006 in Ashland, Wisconsin, is not an easy, inexpensive, or clean one. “Originally we thought some cataclysmic event a tsunami, an earthquake, an asteroid—was responsible. personal way, every day. How could we take wood for granted? And now I step off my soapbox—also made of wood. If one thinks hard enough, one comes to realize that wood is a re ma rkable substance.