Fewer sources for wood- Rockler's only using warehouse suppliers

[BigguyZ]

Went to my local Rockler over the weekend, and I was looking to get some interesting wood that they carry. My store used to have a pretty good selection of burls and turning blanks for reasonable prices (especially with a 20% off coupon). However, all of the burls and misc wood chucks were gone! I asked about them, and they told me that they were told to stop using independent wood distributors, and they get all of their stock from a warehouse supplier.

So that sucks, IMO. There's few sources as it is for more exotic woods, especially that's not rediculously expensive. So now there's one less place to go. I haven't bought a whole lot of these pieces, but now I'm looking for them and they're not available.

Where does everyone get their wood? I'm not looking for mass amounts- I'm mainly looking for pieces I can cut up into pen blanks. (Found out a long time ago that buying boards and blocks and cutting them down is cheaper than buying individual pen blanks).

[germdoc]

Hey don't feel bad--I live in what used to be a BIG logging town, and there is no retail source for roughsawn wood for woodworking. No Rockler, no Woodcraft, just the big boxes.

There are a couple of Woodcrafts in Minneapolis as I recall (one near MOA), and I do believe they have a pretty decent selection of exotic hardwoods.

[BigguyZ]

There is one WC near the cities- and both Rockler and WC have a decent selection of hardwoods. For me, it's mostly about the larger chunks of exotics and burls. WC has them, but it's MUCH more $$$ (and they don't have many coupons like Rockler does).

Regardless, I just find the increased corporatization of WWing stores a bummer, and the lessening of sources is never a good thing, IMHO.

But yeah, I definitely could be worse off!