Home Depot MDF

[Doug Griffith]

FYI, I was just at Home Depot and they've gone metric. They thinned out their MDF from .25" to .216" and .125" to .118". I'm sure the larger thicknesses are affected as well. They still had both in stock and they are the same price. Get it now if you need it.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Doug,
Thats what they did with Ice Cream and Potato chips. Left the price the same but gave you less.

[Mike Lassiter]

They don't need to sell them as 1/8" or 1/4" then. Think of the mess you could have with something already cut or routed for inch measurement. Michael has a good point, yet there is more at stake that just getting less. If I want and buy metric ok; but considering saw blades and cutting tools are based on inches for the most part here its going to cause lots of problems.

[Doug Griffith]

Hey Doug,
Thats what they did with Ice Cream and Potato chips. Left the price the same but gave you less.

On a similar note... We purchase plastic sheets in large quantities direct from the extruder. Minimums run anywhere from 5k to 20k pounds. The trick is to order by weight and not by sheet. Sheets have a thickness tolerance and is almost always extruded on the slim side to keep their margin higher. Weight is what it is. Same price/pound but less plastic if ordered by the sheet.

[Doug Griffith]

They don't need to sell them as 1/8" or 1/4" then. Think of the mess you could have with something already cut or routed for inch measurement. Michael has a good point, yet there is more at stake that just getting less. If I want and buy metric ok; but considering saw blades and cutting tools are based on inches for the most part here its going to cause lots of problems.

It's labeled as .118" and .216" but the thicker old stock is mixed in. I can see problems arising while matching pre-existing items and fixtures. Just think of notched boxes made from .25". The tabs will have a .034" overhang.

[Lee DeRaud]

What's odd is that the stuff I got two weeks ago at the Anaheim Hills store was also metric (or looked like it), miking out at an almost perfect 6mm, 12mm, and 18mm.
When did 5.5mm become a 'standard' size in Metricland?

[Richard Rumancik]

. . . When did 5.5mm become a 'standard' size in Metricland?

Probably for quite a while. You can buy 5.5 mm acrylic as well. (www.sterlingpromotions.ca/Plexiglas-Sheet.html (http://www.sterlingpromotions.ca/Plexiglas-Sheet.html))

If you look at metric tools, you will see 5.5 mm sockets and hex keys are not uncommon. In smaller sizes of "stuff" an increment of 1 mm is a bit large so they go in 0.5 mm steps. Sometimes it is done so that the metric size is a bit closer to a fractional size, to make the transition easier. I wonder if Home Depot found a supplier in Asia?

[Lee DeRaud]

In smaller sizes of "stuff" an increment of 1 mm is a bit large so they go in 0.5 mm steps. Sometimes it is done so that the metric size is a bit closer to a fractional size, to make the transition easier.Yeah, but 6mm is a lot closer to 1/4" than 5.5mm is...more to the point, the whole-millimeter metric sizes are very close to the "nominal minus 1/32" that plywood has been for the last decade or so.

[Steve knight]

Do you need another reason not to shop for wood products at home depot? besides the low quality of course.

[Mike Lassiter]

probably price driven. They are big enough to order enough from overseas supplier. We as people are somewhat to blame for it. We want lower cost and get it by bypassing American suppliers for cheaper overseas ones. Big companies have put many smaller ones out of business. Locally here when Wal Mart built the Super Store and started selling groceries we lost EW James. Wal Mart use to say if more than 3 where standing in line at a register they would open more. Now at 8:00 pm there are 2-3 open with lines backed up across the front row. We chose cheaper a lost our other options because they are now gone. And now we stand longer at checkout sometimes than it took to get what we came for.