Rockler hardwood and plywood sizes: boards by the piece, red oak panels and a bookcase cut list

Rockler is a woodworking store, not a building-materials yard, so the stock is aimed at furniture and finish work rather than framing. Instead of studs and sheathing you find surfaced hardwood boards sold one at a time, and cabinet-grade plywood in precut panels that fit in a car. The tables below list the real board sizes and panel dimensions with prices from rockler.com. At the end, a worked cut list builds a small red oak bookcase from one 24 in by 48 in plywood panel, and shows why gluing the same case up from solid boards would cost well over $100 more.

Hardwood boards by the piece

Rockler sells surfaced hardwood boards individually, so you can buy exactly what a small project needs without a minimum order. The boards are S4S, which means they are planed to thickness, ripped to width and cut to length, so the size on the label is the finished size you build with. The most common furniture stock is 3/4 in thick in a 5 in width and a 24 in length, with the price set by species.

Source: rockler.com hardwood by-the-piece pages, accessed August 2026. Thinner cuts (1/8, 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2 in) and other widths and lengths are also sold, at lower prices for less material. Boards this size are best for boxes, trays, small shelves and accents; wider panels are edge-glued from several boards. Prices are before sales tax and change; confirm before buying.

Hardwood plywood panels

For cabinet and case work, Rockler stocks hardwood plywood in precut panels rather than full 4 ft by 8 ft sheets. The panels have a real hardwood face on both sides, so the finished piece matches solid wood. The 24 in by 48 in size is the workhorse for small furniture, and it fits in a car without a roof rack.

Source: rockler.com red oak plywood page (A2 grade, both faces red oak), accessed August 2026. The 3/4 in panel is the structural choice for case sides and shelves; the 1/4 in panel is meant for cabinet backs and drawer bottoms, not for parts that carry load. Birch, maple and other faces are stocked in similar precut sizes. Prices are before sales tax and change; confirm before buying.

Does Rockler cut wood to size?

Rockler stores will usually make a cut or two to help a panel fit in your vehicle, but Rockler is set up to sell wood and tools, not to run a full cut-to-size counter. The precut panels already come in handy sizes, which is part of the point: you buy a 24 in by 48 in panel rather than wrestling a full sheet.

For accurate parts, plan to do the final cuts yourself. This is furniture stock, so the parts have to be square and matched, which means a table saw, a track saw, or a circular saw and a straightedge at home. The precut panel simply gives you a manageable starting size to break down.

Worked example: red oak bookcase from one 24 × 48 plywood panel

A small red oak bookcase: 22 in wide, 24 in tall, 7 in deep, in 3/4 in red oak plywood. Two sides run the full 24 in height, and three shelves (top, bottom and one middle) fit between them. With 3/4 in sides, a shelf spans 22 minus 2 × 3/4 in, which is 20-1/2 in. Every part is 7 in deep. A 1/8 in kerf is assumed on each cut.

Parts list

Cutting plan: one 3/4 in red oak panel

One 24 in by 48 in by 3/4 in red oak panel at $89.99. The plan is two stages: rip the 24 in width into strips 7 in deep, then crosscut each strip into parts. Three 7 in strips take 21 in of the 24 in width (plus two kerfs), leaving a 2-3/4 in offcut. Each strip is 48 in long.

Three strips give 2 sides plus 4 shelves. The bookcase needs 3 shelves, so the fourth is a spare for a future divider or a deeper middle shelf. One panel does the whole job, using about two thirds of its area, with the 2-3/4 in rip and the strip ends left over.

Why not glue it up from solid boards? The same case in solid red oak means edge-gluing narrow boards to reach the 7 in depth. Rockler's hardwood boards are 5 in wide, so each 7 in part needs two boards glued and trimmed. Five parts at two boards each is ten boards. Even at the lowest by-the-piece price on the rack, $22.99, that is $229.90 before any glue-up labor, against $89.99 for the plywood panel. The panel saves at least $139.91 and skips the glue-ups, which is why cabinet plywood is the usual choice for case sides and shelves, with solid wood saved for edges and doors.

Plan your own Rockler cut list

Once you know Rockler's panel sizes and board dimensions, the real question is how your parts nest onto a 24 in by 48 in panel, or onto short hardwood boards, with the least waste and cost. That is exactly what SawReady works out. Enter your parts, set the panel size and board lengths to match what Rockler carries, and it finds the most efficient way to cut and buy.

Plan my Rockler cuts