On 13/08/2019 23:39, Theo wrote:
Went to Wickes to buy some wood, came home with a banana.

You can surely inspect them before buying though.

This happens every time, and is getting rather tedious. It would be nice to
have somewhere that sells vaguely straight wood for a change.

I seem Travis Perkins have finally put non-account prices on their website,
and also indicating which branches have a timber cutting service (so I don't
have to try to fit 3.6m lengths in the car). But is their wood any good?
Does TP Group somehow send all their awful wood to Wickes?

I have found TP or Jewsons (or even better local timber specialists)
handy when I needed something heavier and bulkier than the sheds offer.
Timber specialists are pretty much essential for hardwoods. My local
farming supplier also does a good line in rough cut fencing timber.

We also have Ridgeons locally, who have also recently started admitting
prices on the web, but it's unclear what their policy on cutting is (and
they don't list the base lengths).

(hello Jewson, it would be nice if you could join the pricing party too)

Depending on what you need and how much chasing around you are prepared
to do you can always go in and ask them. One of my motivations was that
they would machine cut a large 18mm marine plywood to the required size
for a very reasonable price and the resulting bits would then fit into
my car. Saved hiring a van and making very long manual cuts.

The sheds material was pretty poxy and weak by comparison. But it wasn't
as nice as the marine ply the window fitters I had in recently were
using - that had all the knots on the outer surface replaced by veneer.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown