Home Depot Plywood gloat - no, really!

[Brian Kent]

My wife made a deal with me. If I enclose 1-1/2 walls of the 2-car garage with floor to ceiling cabinets, I can use the rest of the space for woodworking. No brainer.

I started on the 1st 8' x 8' cabinet. I went to Home Depot tonight to get some cheap 3/4" chipboard for the shelves. When I was getting them cut the guy on the saw asked me what I was using them for. He asked me if I would rather use 3/4" birch ply. I said sure, but I am going for economy this time.

As it turned out my Home Depot was changing vendors and was selling their remaining stock for $4 per sheet. I bought the last 7 sheets for $28. He even ripped them for me so I could get them in my little SUV.

Now I know that Birch ply is not Baltic Birch and that there will be some messy spots, but for garage cabinets I can handle that. The chipboard was going to be $24 for 2 sheets!

[chris fox]

thats pretty impressive!!! even for sacrifice boards and tool carts this is a great deal. I will head over to my HD maybe my HD is switching vendors too??

[Brian Kent]

Chris, if that really is your picture next to your name, you might ask daddy to take you. You might have problems reaching the pedals on his truck.

[chris fox]

haha, I need to up date his pic hes now 3.5 and still cant reach the pedals...but he loves HD. We have our Saturday HD ritural - we go through the light section, through the grill and lawnmower section, then out to the plants, onto the fountains, ignore the Trane A/C saleguy - then finish up at the TOOLS!

[Mike Parzych]

What a deal. I just checked yesterday and 3/4 birch ply is now $54.88 at the local HD.

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

$50+ around here too.

Question on ply....the local Lowes has 3/4", but both 7-ply and 9-ply. Is the 9 ply better? more stable, etc?

[chris dub]

I went to the HD by me and I saw that they now have US made Maple ply for $63. So they have the sand ply for ~$30, the Birch for $40, Oak for $44 and maple for $63. It would be interesting if they are adding a decent quality offering.

[Clifford Mescher]

$50+ around here too.

Question on ply....the local Lowes has 3/4", but both 7-ply and 9-ply. Is the 9 ply better? more stable, etc?
Rule of thumb...more ply's the better. But it might make a difference on what species the ply's are made of? Clifford

[David Keller NC]

It'll be interesting to see how the newer stuff at the Home Despot pans out. I and others have purchased some ply from them in the last year that was unacceptable - full of voids, not even close to flat, some de-lamination. And that stuff was marked "made in china" - I resolved never to buy the stuff from them again. Perhaps they got so many complaints that they decided to switch back to US-made material.

[Von Bickley]

You were at the right place at the right time.... That would never happen to me. :)

[Peter Quinn]

That warms my heart to hear. Good deal. The Borg near me sells birch plywood that is worth about $8/sheet, at a cost of around $40! So even if you got the same stuff they sell at mine (which isn't terrible, but is hardly what I would consider real cabinet grade material for work I would sell to people for money) You still only paid 50% of its value!:D Serious value.

Way way better than OSB or flake board. Just don't build any thing with it like large cabinet doors that need to stay flat in an opening. I've read too many posts hear already that start off "My borg ply doors warped...is there any fix?"

[Brian Kent]

You got it Peter. I would not have paid $33, but I'm happy at "half-price".:D


And Von, I would have said the same thing yesterday morning!