The Framers Forum

From time to time, I have various uses for plywood and especially for making Jigs, etc. My local hardware shop is where I usually get mine from. they provide a cut to size service which has always been at a reasonable price in the past. Where I went over to the hardware shop a couple of days ago, I discovered that they are now longer keeping as much plywood in stock and the prices have quite noticable gone up. They are now selling cut to size 12mm thick plywood for £1-60 per square foot, I don't know how much I was charged, when I last bought some, but it was not anything like £1-60.

I have a friend who don't household building and decorating jobs, who sometimes gives me the odd plywood off cuts. It's only basic DIY grade stuff, But it's adequate for at least some of my needs. I am now talking to hear about paying her to be my plywood supplier. I don't know about other forum members, but I am not really sure that using plywood on customer jobs is going to pay me to do, if I am needing to pay those sort of prices and add a whorthwhile profit as well. I am definitely going to need to re-think some of this.

Plywood prices have gone though the roof. It's a constant moan on a Woodwork group I'm in on FaceBook. The premium
grade Birch is going for about £80 a sheet were it used to be about 30.

There is a shortage of wood world wide, there are many reasons why, one of them being the vast amount of wood we have lost due to forest fires over the past few years!

I think that we are gong to be using bits and pieces of salvaged wood if we can get it. I won't just help to keep our costs down, but a lot of local suppliers near me seem to be running their stocks down at bit and don't re-order until they are getting really low on stock, Which does not help me in my local area. I have a favorite supplier who cuts boards to size for me, but the are not keeping much in stock these days. This is a bit unfortunate as I don't want to buy larger amounts. I've got some scrap pine shelf units which I can use for odds and ends, if I need to, I hoping that these will be o.k., if I need to knock anything up.