Yakusugi Wood

[9 ball]

I have seen a very nice custom cue on a Japanese cue website That uses Yakusugi wood & I really like it the only thing is when you convert the price from Yen to £'s it would cost over £1000 & that's not with the shipping & duty tax included, so I was wondering if any carpenter/cuemaker could tell me what the western equivalent to yakusugi wood would be if there is any?.

 

[bdorman]

According to wikipedia Yakusugi is a very slow growing Japanese cedar. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakusugi

If it's anything like other cedars, it's too soft to be a good cue wood. The cuemakers forum might have a better/different answer.

 

[Masayoshi]

This page can apparently provided blocks of yakusugi intended for pool cue use. It says to ask for prices. But judging from the prices of smaller pieces of wood on the site, it wont come cheap. A 200x60x3cm board is listed at $2000.

I'm guessing the fact that the wood is much much older than your average cedar has something to do with it being used in pool cue construction.