Buying wood on line

[FogggyTown]

I think I have a valid complaint but maybe some people in here have a view.

Had a request from a neighbour to make a couple of floating shelves from white beech. Each shelf to be 800 mm long X 160 mm deep X 25 mm thick (thickness necessary to match some existing shadow boxes on the wall and also accommodate the hanging fixings).

Went on line and found a merchant who had a sawn plank 2400 mm X 200 mm X 32 mm. Perfect! Stock delivered and I immediately saw it was quite badly cupped. I did some measuring and found that it was only 30 mm thick. Well, that's no big deal but what was a real problem was when I found it also had a 5 mm deflection from the cup which means I will have to thickness 5 mm on each face to get parallel faces. This will leave me with only a 20 mm thickness - and that isn't enough.

I think I have every right to send it back as it is not an aceptable stock and I certaionly would not have chosen it had I been able to do so.

 

[wizer]

You might be able to take it back under distance selling laws.

However, why are you making them out of solid timber? If you make a sandwhich of 6mm solid, 12mm MDF and 6mm solid, then lip it with solid, you'll have 24mm shelves and a bit of timber left over. Ok, the downside is that you might not be able to re-saw the timber. But it's worth considering if you take your timber back and get new boards. You could even use veneered MDF for your upper and lower boards.

Otherwise you are going to have to go to the timber yard and pick the boards yourself.