Where to get Hinoki wood in the US? I'm in NY

[Daniel Bejarano]

Hi,

Hope you all are having a nice day.

I would like to know where I could get Japanese hinoki to build a shower bench. This is how the person I'm building it for wants it build.

Is it viable to even try to inquire and maybe try to get it imported? I know that's a long shot and it might cost.

I have only work with Clear Cedar, which to me would be the closest thing to Hinoki.

I have found some other alternatives such as White Northern Cedar or Cypress. Would it be a waste trying to do it with the Japanese wood while I have these two other options?

How similar is Hinoki to Cedar or Cypress?

Thank you all for any input, suggestions or help.

All best,

Daniel Bejarano

[Phillip Mitchell]

You might consider looking at either Alaskan Yellow Cedar and/or Port Orford Cedar as a more realistic option; they are both actually Cypresses with misleading names. Really not sure how available Hinoki Cypress is outside of Japan. Brian may know.

AYC or POC is going to give you very similar working properties and aesthetics and is available to ship to NY from different sources. The highest grades of those 2 timbers actually gets exported to Japan for temple building, fwiw.

[Lee Schierer]

It appears to be available to some degree through Alibaba (https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Hinoki-Cypress-Lumber-Beautiful-Japanese-Solid_1600212642505.html?spm=a2700.7724857.normal_ offer.d_image.4bf62dd50hxztg&s=p).

[Alex Zeller]

If you are looking for a wood that will last a very long time under those conditions I would look at hardwood decking. Ipe is the typical wood used and isn't too hard to find but it's heavy. But there's other choices may work better.

[Brian Holcombe]

It’s very unlikely that you will be able to acquire hinoki in lumber form. I would consider other options for this project.

[Matthew Hills]

We went with Port Orford Cedar for a soaking tub as it is relatively available on the west coast.

Zen Bathworks (https://www.zenbathworks.com/ofuro-japanese-soaking-tub-by-zen-bathworks/) in Alaska makes ofuro with a variety of woods, including Hinoki, so there must be some option for sourcing it (Red cedar and teak are the other species they use)
In fact, here is a baseline: hinoki bathing stool (https://www.zenbathworks.com/hinoki-bathing-stool/)

Matt

[Kurt Wyberanec]

You might be able to find it, but it is a cypress, so I would say unless you have a customer who is willing to pay a premium and wait longer to find it then go with whatever cypress you can find and you'll probably be pretty close... they all deal with weather pretty well.

[Daniel Bejarano]

Would you be able to tell me the supplier?

[Bill Space]

I can't help with a supplier, but I would try asking the client if "American Hinoki" was acceptable...LOL...but true really...

Only saying this because I lived in Japan for six years, on my own, after meeting my wife outside the country(she is Japanese)...and thought on returning to the States I might like to use some Hinoki wood in my self built house. Never thought there could be a great difference between cypress wood here or there...maybe your clients do not consider possible differences either.