I’ve been buying my hardwoods at San Marcos Hardwood and Saroyan for a few years now because they’re the closest to me. I was excited to take advantage of my new SDFWA membership discount and take a little bit of the sting out of these prices. Today I selected my 8/4 walnut board and went to checkout. I also asked about the price of 4/4 wenge since I’ll need some for an upcoming project. When he told me the $22+/board foot price I excitedly said “thank goodness I just signed up for SDFWA and can use my discount now!” And he says, “no, that’s the best I can do, I’ve already been giving you the contractor price.” Boy did I feel stupid. Umm, okay. That’s news to me, so I guess my membership is no good there.
I head down to TH&H to get some ideas for a wood that I’d like to pair with some walnut I have for another project. I’m looking at the black limba and Mr. Personality at the counter tells me “we don’t discount any exotics. Only these domestics over here, sheet goods, and some of that stuff over there.” So, once again, shot down. 0 for 2. (and I won’t go all the way down there to buy domestic because I already buy that at San Marcos because all this time I just thought they had slightly better prices).
So I head to Rockler, where I rarely go, but I like to browse once in a while and see what’s new, but I hardly ever buy anything there. The wood is overpriced and whatever isn’t the latest gimmicky unnecessary Rockler-branded invention, is just something I’d buy on amazon for less anyway.
So all that driving for nothing. Kind of a bummer.
Sorry, I just had to vent a bit, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of activity on this forum so I doubt anyone else will feel my pain, lol!
If I can make a friendly suggestion, maybe SDFWA can update their “premium partners” page with more accurate details about the discounts these vendors are offering. I think that would be helpful 