Shop Smells

I broke out the old YZ today to clean it up and do a couple of things. It has been far too long since I touched it. I’ve lived in my current house for two and a half years. I haven’t ridden it in all that time, and it was probably at least a year before I moved that I last did. It was still dirty from that outing. The bike had been neglected for so long that the air filter disintegrated in my hand when I tried to pull it out.

When I went to clean up, though, I caught a whiff of something that really took me back. My grandfather on my mother’s side wasn’t the handiest man in the world, but he tried his best. Whenever we finished some project that took twice as long as it should have and it was time to clean up he always pulled out his trusty Goop hand cleaner. He loved the stuff.

He’s been gone eight years now (almost to the day), and wasn’t doing a whole lot for a decade or so before that. The smell of Goop, though, still takes me back to working in the shop with him when I was a kid. Even though it isn’t the best hand cleaner around, I still use it to this day because of him. As soon as I cracked that tub open a smile crept across my face.

Gasoline is great, and two stroke exhaust gives me an adrenaline rush, but nothing in the shop gives me the same feeling as that little white tub.

So...anybody else have a shop smell that evokes fond memories? Anything you keep around even though there are better alternatives just because of a mental association?

Annhl8rX said:

So...anybody else have a shop smell that evokes fond memories?

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As far as particular shop smells go, I found that its always better to blame it on the dog

But you are right, the smell of pre-mixed 2 stroke fuel is quite hard to beat and very particular of years gone by.

The smell of a freshly built engine coming to life

Love the smell of av gas in a car or motorcycle. Must be the octane we no longer get.

Woodworking. As a kid, I got in the way of a LOT of my dad's projects. He did lots of stuff with wood. So the smell of lumber, the slight burn smell from a circular saw, drill, etc,... the smell of wood glue, and so many others. They take me back.

Inner tubes. I changed a LOT of bicycle inner tubes as a kid. We also had those old vulcanizing patches that you light with a match. Both those smells take me back.

Tourmeister said:

Woodworking. As a kid, I got in the way of a LOT of my dad's projects. He did lots of stuff with wood. So the smell of lumber, the slight burn smell from a circular saw, drill, etc,... the smell of wood glue, and so many others. They take me back.

Inner tubes. I changed a LOT of bicycle inner tubes as a kid. We also had those old vulcanizing patches that you light with a match. Both those smells take me back.

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+1. I almost looked forward to patching a hole, just to get to play with matches and light something up. I think 6 patches was the record for one tube, before the valve stem gave out. Woodworking, too. Although, have been planing some ambrosia maple for a shelving project, and I'm not sure if it's the wood, or my new hand planer, but it smells like a certain skunkish, herbal mood altering product.

The Safety-Kleen parts washer fluid does it for me too.

I used to bust tires in a shop when I was in school and the smell of new tires is another that makes me flash back.

Or the smell of a bundle of fresh red shop rags....

Do I need to stop here?

I love the smell of new tires, but you practically have to stick your head inside to get a good whiff. That scene is hard to explain, when the wife comes out and finds you with your head stuck in a new bike tire. Then they find, like everything else that tastes or smells good, that it is carcinogenic.

One smell in particular will likely never leave me. Way back, 1979 I think it was, my family lived in Alvin. Claudette dumped 48" of rain on us in less than 48 hours. We had just over four feet of water in our house. The house and garage never smelled right again. That peculiar smell that hung around is like an instant trigger for me. Years later, my wife and I were shopping for a house here in Huntsville. There were several of them where we walked and in I instantly smelled that same peculiar odor We immediately turned around and walked back out. Just too many bad memories to live with that every day and it is impossible to ever really get rid of it.

With me it's leather. Just as with you, my grandfather on my mothers side had a horse boarding and tack shop at his place in Georgia. Every time I walk into a boot shop or saddle shop (Double J Saddle, Yoakum) I am taken back.
As far as garage smells it would have to be petroleum brake clean. Not the non chlorinated that is readily available now but when you can find it the real stuff.

Sam

I can't stand the smell of an oodles of dead crickets. It reminds my olfactory nerves of a bad experience in the early 80's. They are bad in certain years and get into the shop and stink to high heaven. Once in a parking garage elevator pit where water was, about a million drowned in the oily gooey water. As we pumped it out I saw four grown men puke like there is no tomorrow. I step on and kill everyone that crosses my path, and sometimes go out of my way to put a squashin on one. I like the crackling sound but I hate the smell.
They used to poison them in front entrances of buildings with lights that attracted them. Then the Grackles would eat the dead Crickets and die. Then you had double stink. I won't even listen to Buddy Holly in my shop when they are out