Stinky Wood ID Help (Full Draw Added)

[bubbles]

Hey guys -

  So I kind of stupidly cut some wood that I wasn't familiar with.  It looked like a nice straight stave, so I thought I'd give it a try.  Seems like a hard wood.  I noticed a bit of a smell as I was cutting it down.  It would be later described as "old vomit" or "stinky socks".  Either way, just working off the bark and splitting it, left me with everybody asking me why I smelled so bad at dinner.  This stave has precede to stink up every room I leave it in, as well as the car I transported it in.  It's now drying is a seldom used room in the garage. So, any ideas?  Unfortunately my phone was dead when I was in the woods, so I couldn't grab pics of the buds.  I will say, the buds looked very similar to viburnum buds.  It's got some nice dark heartwood, and it's an understory tree - the tallest ones were around 20' high.  It's growing in a fairly wet/swampy area, (spring and fall) but none of it grows where the water typically is.   If nobody can figure it out, I'll get some pics of the leaves when I get a chance, when I go back out there.  I'm in southern ontario.   

[Danzn Bar]

Looks like dogwood to me...
DBar

[Josh B]

I was thinking black cherry.  Josh

[bubbles]

I found some flowering dogwood pics that seem to have similar bark, but I couldn't find pics of the end cut to show the heart/sap ratio.   It doesn't have the little lenticles that cherry's usually have.  The smaller ones (1" to 2") had similar bark - as in there doesn't seem to be a period of smooth bark when it's just a sapling.

[Wiley]

I am working on a flowering dogwood right now, and have not noticed any unpleasant smell. It smells sort of faintly like flowers to me rather than old vomit. The heartwood on the piece I am working is also a lot smaller if you could even call it heartwood, more of a pith. . I'm a long way from southern ontario though.

I can go down to the basement and take a picture of the end of a good specimen of flowering dogwood after my phone charges a bit. Not debarked yet either. Have another smaller one debarked that I can take some pictures of.

There is a tiny dark brown pith running through the center, the wood is white, yellow, with hues of pink. Not much distinguishing between the heart and sapwood.

[PatM]

Exactly whose vomit and socks are we talking about? The overall described characteristics are of no tree I have ever seen in southern Ontario.
 The cross section does look cherry like.
 I've never seen a flowering Dogwood here and I don't think Dogwood grows heartwood like that or have that thicker inner bark.

[lukelawrence171]

awwww! its black cherry i tried to make some arrows out of it before they were good but couldn't stand the smell not had good luck with it for bows they all dried up and broke it turns a beautiful bowl though

[bubbles]

Haha, I was getting a lot of accusations of not showering. "its the wood I swear!"   

[Wiley]

On that note the heartwood/sapwood and even the bark to some degree reminds me of black cherry. But I've never noted it to smell like vomit or old socks. Real mild odor unless you set it on fire, then it smells sweet, really pleasant smell to the smoke. We are smoking a turkey breast right now with some black cherry. If it smelled like vomit, I probably wouldn't cook food with it.

Set a little bit of it on fire and walk downwind from it a little bit. Cherry has such a specific smell, it should smell really pleasant and sweet.

[Inuumarue]

Box Elder?  Does it have any red streaking through it?   The bark doesn't exactly match the stuff I am familiar with, but it is a lowland/swamp tree and does from time to time have a bad smell.

[red hill]

That's black cherry, and yes, it stinks.

[Wiley]

Dogwood with bark on and off, inside and outside surfaces.


Dogwood endgrain from cutting the end off a stave. No signficant color variation between heartwood and sapwood.


Dogwood edge grain from the stave I am currently working. Again no real heartwood color variation. It is the other side of the barked stave in the first picture. Again no real variation in heartwood/sapwood.

[bubbles]

, the bark is a dead ringer, but no dice on the wood.    The one problem is, I feel like noting to myself that the buds were very viburnum like, and opposite, which would eliminate cherry. Maybe I was grabbing a nearby branch from another tree.    Man I wish I had my camera with me.

[Pat B]

My first thought was persimmon but I just worked on a well seasoned persimmon bow and didn't notice a foul smell.
Buds and leaves would help the ID.

[Wiley]

I'm used to persimmon looking very white all the way through it except for a very black pith in it's center. It looks sort of like cherry but the bark is a bit different and the wood is on a different level of hardness and resistance to splitting than cherry ever thought of being.

If it happens to be cherry I would go overkill on sealing the ends and backs. The stuff around here checks like crazy even in our humid Georgia weather.

Also dogwood does have a heartwood, it just needs to be brought out with stain to see it. If you do find some flowering dogwood straight enough and not too twisted that far north, I have really liked working with it so far.