Hello,
I know this is preaching to the choir, but I have to get it off my chest.
With any luck, maybe someone from Home Depot and/or Lowes will stumble on it and do something to correct the situation.
As a “newbie” to woodworking, at the tender age of 54, I find it’s difficult enough to learn all the right things, but the process is actually hampered by bad merchandise and bad advice.
Lowes – I was in the market for a portable table saw. I narrowed the choice down to about 3. On the advice of the salesperson at Lowes, I bought the Hitachi “jobsite” model for $199.99. While it’s quite a step up from my 20 year old promotional $89.00 (at the time) Builder’s Square table saw, it has one enormous flaw.
The miter slot is not industry standard ¾”. This makes finding even the most basic accessories difficult, if not impossible. The aggravation factor alone is worth the difference in price between the Hitachi and the DeWalt – which was also one I considered. The deciding factor came down to the features on the Hitachi as pointed out by the gentleman working in the tool department.
Having worked for one of the Big Boxes myself at one time, I can’t fault the salesman. I really blame Hitachi for it, as well as myself, for not researching it further.
I do blame Lowes somewhat though for not advertising the fact that the saw will not accept common ¾” accessories, or at least put some pressure on Hitachi to change it.
Home Depot – This past Friday evening I had to take the seats out of my Odyssey to make room for 4X8 sheets of plywood and beadboard. While it sounds fairly trivial, the seats are fairly heavy and awkward to remove. The near zero temperatures and the 50 foot walk through the snow in the driveway compounded the misery. I planned it for Friday evening since my son and grandson were coming over. That meant my son could give me hand getting the goods out of the van and into the house. Off to Home Depot we went. I managed to find 2 sheet of ¾” Birch plywood that weren’t too damaged to use.
The problem came with the beadboard. I need 3 sheets of 15/32” either Pine or Birch.
There were 4 sheets of each left on the shelf. The edges were destroyed, they were severely warped and they had water stains. I’m not exaggerating at all how pathetic these pieces were. They were not saleable merchandise, they were scrap.
While I don’t expect to find true cabinet grade goods, I do expect to find something that’s useable. I guess my question here is why do lumber sales fall into some different category than anything else? Had these been hamburgers at McDonalds that were in similar condition, I doubt if the CEO of home Depot would have silently bought them.
Round 2 started when I asked one of the workers if he could get one of the unbroken bundles down so I could buy 3 sheets of beadboard. He point out that there were 4 sheets on the shelf and offer to help me load it on the cart. When I pointed out their condition, he offered to discount each sheet 10%. I asked him if he would buy them himself. He kind of smiled and said no. He then explained that it was company policy…
Needless to say, it’s Sunday and I’m still without beadboard.
Personally, I would be embarrassed to have something that belongs in a landfill, sitting on the shelf of a store I owned, as saleable goods. Those 3 pathetic pieces of beadboard and their polices simply cost them close to $1900.00 is sales. Probably more since I doubt if I’ll go out of my way to shop there anymore.
What’s worse though is that I’m also very discouraged about woodworking in general.
I mentioned earlier that I was 54. I’m at the age where I’m thinking ahead for retirement.
Woodworking is one thing that I always had an interest in learning. My long term plan is (was?) to begin assembling the tools now while I’m working, in anticipation of having the free time in a few years to devote a lot of attention to making things and/or fixing up things.
You all here at SMC have been great answering questions and steering me in the right directions. I’m sure I’ll never be able to produce anything near the quality of some of the items I’ve seen posted here. I’m pretty realistic. The Almighty blessed some people as craftsmen, and I’m not one of them. Still, I enjoy it, and despite all the roadblocks, I’ll probably continue pursuing it. Maybe not with quite the gusto, unless Lowes and Home Depot can somehow clean up their acts. I can understand though why the nickname “borg” applies to these places.
Thanks for also listening to my rant.
Rich
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Originally Posted by Rich Engelhardt
), and have decided to get back into woodworking after being away from it for about twenty years. I miss the local lumber yards that catered to people like us. There are some still out there but they are not as easy to find and get to as they once were. Hang in there. I'm sure as you start exploring your area you'll find some better places to find quality materials.
