How to calculate board feet for my project

[Dick Snyder]

I'm not sure my subject line is even right. I am going to be building an entertainment center out of solid teak and teak plywood. I know the dimensions of each piece of solid teak for my project. I learned the last time I did a project not to layout each piece on a piece of paper where I know the board width and length because where I go, it is 2S lumber and I don't necessarily know what width or length boards I will find that I like.

I want to take each component of my project and total them up to board feet. When I select the boards I want, I can have the lumber yard calculate the board feet and as long as it is about 20% more than my required wood, I should be OK. Of course I have a few special requirements (e.g., a few pieces MUST be 7" wide) but other than that, nothing is all that tricky

I know how to take a particular component and convert its width and length to board feet. Should I just do that, add them all up, multipy by 1.20 and that will be my number? I guess I was hoping to find some kind of a board foot calculator to do that but everytime I google "board feet calculator" I just get something that let's you enter a number of boards of the same width and length and it will tell you the number of board feet.

Probably your answer will be "Make a spreadsheet with 3 columns: length, width and computed board feet" Take each length (in inches), width (in inches) and multiply then divide by 144. That is the board feet for that component.

Add 'em up and multiply by 1.20.

TIA

Dick Snyder

[Lew Hodgett]

----------------- I use at least 1.30.

BTW, given a choice, I'll take rough loumber over 2S every time.

Why?

What assurance do you have that wood machined, even a couple of days ago, hasn't moved by the time you want to use it?

Have fun.

Lew

[brian]

This may or may not be what you are looking for:

calculates price automatically if you enter your lumber yard prices in 'Sheet_2'

[Lew Hodgett]

I wrote:

------------------------------------ Don't forget you are going to cut 6"-9" off each end of a random length board to get rid of any checks, splits, cracks, etc.

They figure in your B'F calculations and you pay for those cut offs even when they end up on the floor.

They might have some redemptive value if they can be turned into chips to smoke meat, but that assumes you are into BBQ.

Lew

[Dick Snyder]

My main thinking on 2S is that I have a 6" jointer which is fine for doing edges but not so fine for doing wider boards.

[Dick Snyder]

This may or may not be what you are looking for:

calculates price automatically if you enter your lumber yard prices in 'Sheet_2

Thanks Brian. That isn't what I am looking for right now. I am just trying to figure out how to express my various project parts into a board feet number since that is how the lumber yard sells lumber. The first time I did this, I had a detailed plan for taking various board lengths and widths (that I had decided on before going to the lumber supplier) and getting the parts I needed out of them. That plan fell apart because they only had the lumber I was looking for (cherry) in one width. That had a LOT of it in 10' lengths and roughly 8" widths. I just had to make a wild guess on the spot. It turns out I bought too much which isn't the end of the world because I will use it down the road. I just want to go in more prepared this time.

Dick

[dadiOH]

Since you plan to use teak for your project it appears that $$ doesn't enter in; that being the case, buy a Performax drum sander...the 16-32 model should do you, it will do boards 16" wide in one pass. No tear out either.

Regarding your boardfeet calculator, yes, a spreadsheet is what you need. Not three columns though, four...one for "quantity".

[GarageWoodworks]

That's exactly what the spread sheet does.

Bring chalk w/ you. Chalk out all your parts onto the lumber. The spreadsheet will get you 'ball park'.

There isn't any ant way, that I'm aware of, to be more prepared than that (using the spread sheet and adding in X% board feet for waste)

[GarageWoodworks]

Sorry for the confusion. This is also my account. Dont ask me how i ended up w/ two.

[Swingman]

In this day and age, WW'ers who have the ability to post to a newsgroup owe it to themselves to invest in a cutlist program to help them save money and optimize the use of expensive hardwoods.

With a program like CutList Plus you can enter your parts off your shop drawings and the program will calculate board feet, give you a cutlist layout showing the most efficient way to make your cuts, and, if you enter the current price from your lumber yard of the various materials in the raw materials section, it will give you the cost of your project so you know what it will cost before you walk out the door, among other good information like hardware, hinges, etc.

There are many of these cutlist programs out there, but Todd at CutList Plus has the best one, IME, so give the free trial a run and see if it doesn't suit you.

[Lew Hodgett]

------------------------------------- From another list discussing the rebuild of a swim platform on a boat using plantation teak:

--------------------------------------- The strips are 15 feet long, 1 1/2 iches wide and about 7/8ths thick, approximately 25 board feet before milling.

--------------------------------- Cost given as "About a Boat Buck".

Lew

[Lew Hodgett]

"Dick Snyder"

----------------------------- I'm not all hung up on jointing a face before planing..

If I have a board wider than 6" jointer that is cupped, would probably rip, then face joint, plane, re-joint cut edges and glue.

But that's just me, I'm not impressed with wide boards.

If it is a wider board that is relatively flat, it's straight to the planer.

I just don't want to have machined stock laying around waiting to be used.

YMMV

Lew

[Leon]

That is why all the S2S 4/4 lumber I have seen is milled to 13/16" or more vs. 3/4". I always mill S2S again to "my" specs. IMHO the trouble with rough cut is that you have to dress each board at the lumber yard to see what you are getting. My experience is that only S4S is milled to what you expect as far as thickness and width are concerned.