Layman question (board ft)

[Shopdog]

First of all let me say that I buy my wood from the box stores. I finally ventured into a local sawmill, boy that blade sure is huge!! Anyway, I am looking for rough cut pine for a rustic cabin project I am working on. Now, never having bought wood from a sawmill He told me that is is .60 a board foot. It is my understanding that a board foot is 1 in by 12 by 12. So, if I were to ask him for 1/2 X 6 X 10' boards and I would be needing enough wood to cover two 14'x8' walls. Now here comes my question:

I have :

224 total sq. ft. of walls 250 sq ft of ceiling

474 total sq. ft.

Would my total cost be 142.20?

thanks

Searcher

[ejb]

Hi Searcher,

[Rick]

It would be highly unusual for a sawmill to provide "2/4" material. A more common thickness would be 4/4 and you would surface and mill the wood to your thinner specifications. The lumber mill might provide the thickness you are after, but I presume that there would be a milling charge or premium of some kind to reflect the additional work. I would plan on spending double your estimate (plus some for waste) to get the job done.

Rick

Sh> First of all let me say that I buy my wood from the box stores.

[lwasserm]

Probably not. If you want to know exactly what it will cost you will have to tell the mill what exactly you want and see what price they come up with. They may or may not be willing to haggle. Generally, even for rough surfaced 1/2" thick boards, a mill will still use 1" as the thickness for calculating BF. Reason being, basically, that they will say that they have to start with the same # of BF to get 474 sq ft of 1/2" planks as 474 sq ft of 3/4" thick planks.

[Dave Balderstone]

You're asking for "finished" boards which are typically sold by the linear foot, not the board foot.

Board foot:

I bought some cherry short cuts today for $4 Canadian a BF. They're

15/16" x 6 x 24. (15/16 because they're surfaced one side). (maybe a bit of a neener, there).

I need to joint them, plane, resaw some of them and plane again... before I can begin to use them for the jewelry box SWMBO has told me she wants for Christmas.

Now...

They had some nice, similar, walnut offcuts at $6 a BF, but also some lovely S4S walnut boards. Those were 1/2" x 6" at $10 a *linear* foot or $20 a BF.

See the difference? BF = rough lumber, LF = surface finished boards &

2X+ the cost.

[dpb]

Shopdog wrote: ...

...

No. A bd-ft is as you say, but easier to think of as 1" T, 1' W x 1' L.

The _finished_ material you're asking for is only 1/2" T, but the pricing at the sawmill will be based on the _rough_ material required to make it, plus milling charges for making the paneling boards you want (assuming it is a mill shop and they do such things, not just sawyers). In all likelihood they won't saw less than 1" rough so the base material would be 1" T and so the computation of the board feet purchased will be based on that, but it is possible particularly if they do have a bandsaw mill they might go to 3/4 roughsawn.

As somebody else noted, what you really need to do is to tell the guy what you want and get a quote on that and hopefully find something they do routinely. Plus, of course, you're going to need a fair amount of overage for wastage, etc. Is this graded or "tree run" and do you care about knots, wane, split ends, etc., etc.? If you're expecting all you get to be clear, usable lumber and as this sounds like, he's quoting straight off the log "as it comes", you probably won't be getting what you expect.

I'm assuming

[Shopdog]

Well, for this project I want the roughest, knottiest looking wood I can find. What I am doing is turning the upstairs of my shop into what is supposed to look like an 1800's mining type cabin. I finished one 12X12 room already and it looks great. I just have to finish the 18 X 12 room now. The first round of rough cut I got was actuallya fluke, an elderly Amish man offered rough cut pine 1X6X10-12-16 to me for only 1.50 a board. I got about

150 various length boards and used just about all of them for my first room. The lumber he had was from his own property and he felt he needn't waste the trees so he cut them to whatever length he could.

Thanks for all the advice, I will ask the guy for a complete price for both

1/2 and 1" T. see if it makes a difference.

Thanks Again

Searcher

[J. Clarke]

I'm getting the impression that you actually want to use the lumber rough-sawn--if that is the case be sure to tell him that that half-inch is rough sawn, not planed.

[DanG]

The 1/2" doesn't count. The thinnest (littlest) board foot number that is used is 1", whether it is milled to 3/4" or 1/2".

In your example a board foot and a square foot would work out the same.

___________________________ Keep the whole world singing. . . . DanG