SASSAFRAS
BOTANICAL NAME: Sassafras albidum and Sassafras officinale of the family Lauraceae

COMMON NAMES: cinnamon wood, common sassafras, file-gumbo, golden elm, gumbo-file, red sassafras, sassafrac, saxifrax tree, smelling stick, wah-en-nah-kas, white sassafras

TYPE: hardwood

COLOR: The sapwood is a narrow yellowish-white with little distinction between it and the heartwood, which most reports say is initially pale brown to orange brown and darkens to dull orange brown upon exposure, resembling ash, hackberry, and chestnut. My own experience (limited) is that the heartwood is more greenish brown.

GRAIN: generally coarse, open (like ash) and straight, sometimes with an interesting pattern.

TEXTURE: Texture is coarse. One report says the texture is fine, but I don't know what planet that person is from. Luster is low to medium (my own experience is low)

PROPERTIES / WORKABILITY: Meduim-strong hardwood with medium strength in all categories except for stiffness, which is low. It is easily worked with both hand and machine tools, is very easy to saw, glue well, moulds well, mortises reasonably well, planes well, sands well, routing & recessing fairly easy to very easy, turning is fairly easy to very easy and carving properties are moderate, veneers easily, polishes well (my experience does not support that --- I've found it too coarse for good polishing), very moderate blunting of cutting tools. It yields clean, finished surfaces and takes a finish well. Boring is somewhat difficult and nailing is fairly difficult to very difficult and pre-boring is recommended but it holds nails reasonably well. Pre-boring also recommended for screws, and it reportedly holds screws better than nails.

DURABILITY: very resistant to heartwood decay in exposed, damp conditions, making it good for fence posts and outdoor uses. Some reports cite susceptablity to insect attack, and it is not particulary resitant to physical wear, so would not make good flooring. It is fairly permeable (both hearwood and sapwood) to preservative treatments.

FINISH: takes finishes and paints fairly well although the slight porosity can cause splotchiness in stains.

STABILITY: little movement in service

BENDING: most reports say it is suitable for steam bending, with medium strength, but one report says it is not suitable for bending.

ODOR: a spicy aromatic odor on fresh-cut surfaces and a spicy taste

SOURCES: grows throughout the Eastern and Midwestern United States and parts of Canada, from Maine to Iowa and south to Texas and Florida. The highest concentration occurs in Arkansas and Missouri.

USES: boat building, boxes, building materials, canoes, cooperage, cooperage (slack), crates, door frames, doors, fence rails and posts, fenceposts (due to decay resistance), furniture, general millwork, inexpensive furniture, interior construction, interior trim, kindling, kitchen cabinets, lifeboats, lumber, millwork, mouldings, posts, rails, shipbuilding, small boats, stakes, windows

In addition to woodworking, sassafras tea can be made from boiling the tree’s flowers and the root bark. Sassafras oil from the tree’s root can also be used to perfume soap and as medicine.

TREE: In some parts of the country sassafras is no more than a shrub-sized tree and in many places the trees are too small to yield production quantities of lumber, but in the South it grows to over 100 feet (although 80 is more common) and with trunk diameters of 3 to 6 feet.

WEIGHT: 28 to 31 pounds per cubic foot.

DRYING: Most reports say it needs care in drying or it will check. One report says that it seasons without difficulty, and is accompanied by little degrade. It has less shrinkage in drying than most hardwoods

AVAILABILITY: limited for both lumber and veneer

COST: moderate.

OTHER NOTES:

sassafras is reported to be often mixed at sawmills with other species such as ash, although I find this odd since in my experience the color makes it quite readiliy distinguishable from ash.

It is well-known as an aromatic species and tea is commonly made from the roots.

web quotes:
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"Sassafras wood is quite hard but carves well. Sassafras is indeed a beautiful wood and has an unusual color. It is fun to carve on because every cut releases that wonderful aroma. I expect you could probably take the chips and brew tea although we always used the roots for that."

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Sir Walter Raleigh took sassafras back to England from Virginia. In what were called the Great Sassafras Hunts from 1602-1603, ships were sent from England to collect the roots. Sassafras roots then were converted into a tonic that smelled like root beer and supposedly kept its drinkers youthful and healthy. Sassafras was also used as dye to give fabric an orange tint.

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Together, aspen, basswood, cottonwood, elm, gum, hackberry, sassafras, sycamore and willow represent 12.5 percent of commercially available U.S. hardwoods.

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Museum-Quality Furniture

Custom woodworker Charles Radtke of Cedarburg, WI, is well acquainted with sassafras wood. He used sassafras in a chest he built, which will be displayed beginning this month in the Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art. The Smithsonian Institution has purchased Radtke’s piece for its permanent collection.

Radtke hand-picked the sassafras he used in the chest from a dealer in Missouri, his native state. The piece has a mahogany frame with sassafras panels inside and out. He hand-planed the wood and finished it with shellac. "Sassafras is a great wood to work," Radtke said. "It has consistent growth with no odd shapes. It is stable and when cut from the grain and dried, will not warp, cup or check. In looks, it reminds some people of ash or white oak but its color when green is a very light rust. While it has an open grain like ash, it is softer. It is also fairly strong and works well with machine or hand tools and finishes well using shellac or oils." Radtke has used a mix of shop-sawn veneer and solid panels in his custom designs. He buys sassafras from Missouri and Pennsylvania.

"Growing up in Missouri, my parents made sassafras tea for us whenever we were sick," Radtke said. "They probably found it was a good way to get us to drink liquids. Sassafras tea has a pleasant taste, almost like root beer. My father, a butcher, also used sassafras alone and with hickory to smoke meats such as ham and sausage. Sassafras is very aromatic and is an incredible wood for smoking meat."

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Sassafras twigs are supposed to aid in producing saliva and many hikers know to chew on the twigs to cure a dry mouth when they are without water.

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Quite a bit of lore and legend surround the tree. In the early 1600s, ships were sent from England with the sole purpose of collecting sassafras, which was converted into a tonic that people of the era believed to be a fountain of youth, as well as having healing properties. Donald Culross Peattie, writing in A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America, noted that its reputation as a cure-all dates to 1574 when Nicholas Monardes, known as the physician of Seville, wrote of sassafras, claiming it was a remedy for malaria and "large importunate fevers," a comfort for the liver, stomach and head, a cold remedy and an appetite inducement.