A Good Plywood At Home Depot

[johnny means]

I buy my construction stuff from the Borgs, but anything else is sourced from better suppliers. I have several local suppliers to choose from. My question is, do other areas not have local commercial suppliers? I could see the absolutely clueless buying HD birch ply or red oak ply, but even the most novice Creeker knows that Borg material are bordering on useless.

[Tom M King]

1-1/2 to 2 hours to the good stuff for me, so most of the time we just make out. We don't use that much plywood anyway, fortunately.

[Walter Plummer]

Flat plywood is a rare find, and price is not a guarantee. We recently purchased two sheets of marine grad Sapele plywood to the tune of $250.00 a sheet. As soon as we started cutting it started moving. Got the project done on time but it was disappointing how much trouble it was. If you start with crooked lumber and start roughing it down it seems flatter the smaller the pieces get. The smaller you cut down plywood the more the twist shows. Kinda like why glue is slippery and grease is sticky.

[Tom Giacomo]

I also purchased sandeply from HD and found it comes from China and Equador, the stuff from China is junk but the Equador ply is pretty good.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Incredibly, my local HD had a skid of 3/4walnut veneer plywood for sale just last week. I'm assuming the supplier made a mistake delivery.

Not necessarily a mistake in delivery. Could be they had an inventory situation where the walnut was not moving, and they had a few units they need to move - even it it meant taking a bit of a bath. So - they substituted it. The lumber bidness [not the high-end hardwood stuff, but softwood and most plys, etc] is, at its roots, a commodity-driven marketplace.

Commodity prices go up and down and up and down and then even downer...you gotta stay close to "on market" with your inventory, because if you are going to wait for the market to come back, you might be leaving a problem for the guy that replaces you. THe classic line is "Your first loss is your best loss."

BOG is generally fine with 'exceeds agreed specs" substitutions. Plus- unlikely anyone was gonna gripe, eh?

[fred woltersdorf]

Hi Paul, here is my experience at the Trumbull HD today, I'm building some rolling carts for my shop and went to the Trumbull store as I was in the neighborhood, I found the Sandeply and it looked good as you described, I put a sheet on a cart and went to the pro desk and asked if someone could cut the sheet down as I don't have the room in the shop, the employee was very nice and said sure I'll get a worker over at the panel saw.

The worker was also very polite and marked the two cuts I wanted, then things went downhill when he started cutting, I could tell the blade was dull when I smelled the aroma of burning wood, he finished the cut and the cut wasn't deep enough and wouldn't separate, so another worker stops by and said the blade was supposed to changed yesterday and the two of them made the cut again but I looked at the cut and the sheet of ply was all messed up, crooked, burnt, at that point I said no thanks I'm not taking that home and left, too bad ruined a sheet of ply, I'll see if the Fairfield store has it.

[Paul Wunder]

Fred,

Wow, that surely was bad timing for you. I just got mine a week ago. I didn't think they cut that much lumber each week. I hope things work our for you.

[Alex Stace]

the HD here in Maine always has a stack of the Poplar plywood for 40 bucks a sheet or so.
I have been very happy with it, though the outer veneers are a little thin.
And they store it on the floor by the contractor entrance so it doesn't get bent by the racking. (which from looking at them their racking is not all level, many of the racks appear to bend sheet goods because there is a diffence in height between fingers...)

[Dave Lehnert]

A local Hardwood Dealer told me the problem with import plywood is the core wood is stored outdoors and gets wet. They then use it wet and apply the good, dry plywood to each side. When the core starts to dry, it warps.