About how many board feet?

[Shawn Stennett]

About how many board feet would it take to build something close to this?

http://www.lafuente.com/images/main/lib13.jpg (javascript:popUpWindow('http://www.lafuente.com/enlarge.php?pid=139&win=650|388', '650', '388')) 43" w x 74" h x 16" d


I am not experienced in estimating board feet.

Thanks for any help.

[Jason Beam]

Not to be a smarty pants, but giving you the answer isn't gonna get you more experienced :D

Teach a man to fish, and all that, right? :P

Plan it out - figure out each part and its dimensions. That'll give you your total BF. But really, in the end, BF is not quite enough if you're after good grain selection and making the best looking parts possible. You might burn through a bit more boards to get parts with the right grain selection (straight on rails/stiles, pretty on panels, etc). That'll come with experience, too, though.

Best answer: Do the math - take each part and come up with its dimensions.

The total board feet can and does vary greatly depending on joinery as well - if you're doing all through tenons or half laps or bridle joints, those little slots and tabs start to add up quick compared to just doweling everything together, know what I mean?

Take your plans and add it up. If you don't have any plans, draw some up using pencil/paper or a program you're comfortable with (i do everything in SketchUp - google's FREE drawing program). It works real well for visualizing how the things will fit together as a bonus :)

[Jim Kountz]

Yep what Jason said....

[Prashun Patel]

Board feet are measured cubically, where 1BF = 144 cubic inches.

12"x12"x1" = 1 BF.
So, 6"x12"x2" = 1 BF.

For your project, I'd count on 1" rough stock for the whole thing.
To complicate, many places will plane and prepare the faces and sides, which can bring the REAL thickness down to 7/8" or 3/4". But they'll still charge it as if it were 1" thick AND they'll charge additional for the prep steps they took.

Of course, if you buy at the BORG or LWS, they charge by the lineal foot which varies depending on the width. It's a brainless way to go if you want red oak, poplar, or pine. But they only stock 3/4". Personally, I wouldn't trust the maple there...

[Joe Cunningham]

Teach a man to fish, and all that, right? :P


Thanks, must say that is a very helpful post. I often do not do a good enough job with this estimating, but the way you describe the process makes perfect sense. I tend to 'guesstimate' too much.

Glad I click on some of these threads.

[Shawn Stennett]

I had figured it up but I wanted to see if I wain the ball park. I figured 80 bf, am I close?

[Prashun Patel]

Assuming 4/4 on the whole thing, I get between 70 and 90, IF you make the back out of 4/4, which I wouldn't. I'd probably use 1/4" or 1/2" ply rabbeted into the back of the frame just to prevent racking. This'll save you 22BF. The panels on the doors on the lower drawers can also be plywood.

IMHO, the biggest and smartest savings will be to make the shelves out of plywood and then just edgeband the fronts with 4/4. 3/4" Plywood will be more dimensionally stable on the shelves, will make construction a WHOLE lot easier bkz of all that gluing and planing, and will save some $$ - about 30BF. Your edge band can hang down proud of the lower edge which'll give the illusion of a 5/4 or 6/4 thick shelf AND will make the already stable pwood even MORE stable.

After that, I'm getting about 30 BF + (1) 4x8 sheet of 3/4" + (1) 4/8 sheet 1/4".

Good thing is that you got a lot of 1x stock there on the frames and panels, so you can probably get 4" or 6" wide stock, which (IMHO) makes for better pickings.

[Shawn Stennett]

Thank you, so I was right in there figuring the whole thing solid wood. I was going to figure it with ply back, but will now probaly go with it for the shelves as well.

[Shawn Stennett]

I was wanting to build this out of cherry or maple but I am having trouble finding any ply in my area. I live between Dallas and Houston.

[Jason Beam]

Any good lumber yard should have hardwood ply. If you have any cabinet shops in the area, ask them where they buy their hardwood ply. If you explain that you're a local hobbyist and not at all their competition, most cabinet shops are more than happy to help a guy out. Some will even be willing to add what you need to their next order so you can take advantage of their wholesale discounts. Make friends with 'em and they might even let ya pick through their scrap bins :D

[Todd Bin]

Here is a rough "back of the envelope" calculation.

You have these components: 2 sides, top, bottom, 4 shelves, molding, drawers, and a back.

2 sides -- 74" X 16" X 1" / 144 = 8.2 *2 sides = 16.4 brd ft.
Top -- 43" X 16" X 1" / 144 = 4.7 brd ft
Bottom -- 43 " X 16" X 1" / 144 = 4.7 brd ft
4 Shelves -- 43" X 16" X 1" / 144 = 4.7 X 4 shelves = 19.1 brd ft.
Drawer fronts -- 4" X 43" X 1" / 144 = 1.2 brd ft
molding -- 2" X (43" + 16" + 16") *2 = 2.0 brd ft

If you sum this up you get 48.1 brd ft.

The back is 22 brd ft if you used 3/4 inch. Most people would use eith 1/2 inch boards or 1/4" ply.

You will also need a few board feet of poplar or aspen or pine for the drawer parts.

Don't forget to add some extra for waste, test cuts etc.

[Lee Schierer]

I built myself an excel spreadsheet and I list every piece with dimensions and what material it will be made form.

Since I buy S4S material by the lineal foot I determine the most economical width for each piece, including glue ups and enter the stock width in a column. My spreadsheet tallies the lineal feet of material by stock width and also calculates the cost. I round up the tenths to the next full foot length.

I run the plywood and lineal pieces through a program called sheet layout to determine the optimum cutting sequence and also how many sheets of sheet material I need. When I return from the lumber supplier I enter the exact length of each piece of stock, since the length varies considerably, I purchase into this program and it refigures the best cutting pattern (minimal waste). I also make my dealer happy becuase generally I can get away with shorter pieces for building cabinets . They tend to give extra length since they will round down a piece that is less than a even feet in length to the nearest whole foot. Rarely do I have to go get more wood unless I have a major mistake or completely miss a piece in my listing.

[Dick Sylvan]

I was wanting to build this out of cherry or maple but I am having trouble finding any ply in my area. I live between Dallas and Houston.

I bought maple ply at a local lumber yard here in Houston. Bet you could find some in Huntsville, too, which should not be too far.

[Chris Padilla]

Board feet are measured cubically, where 1BF = 144 cubic inches.

12"x12"x1" = 1 BF.
So, 6"x12"x2" = 1 BF

I dunno if a bf is measured cubically (not sure I've ever heard it phrased like that) but certainly, it is a volume measurement which can have a cubed unit like in³. :)

Technically, the unit of bf is in-ft² (inch foot squared).

So 1" × 1' × 1' = 1 bf = 1 in-ft²

If one uses all inches in the calculation, you must divide the result by 144 to get it into bf since there are 144 in² per ft².

Typically, the thickness is always in inches and the length is in feet but it is the width that can vary although it is more often than not in inches. In this case, one only need to divide by 12:

[thickness (in) × width (in) × length (ft)]/12 = bf

[Richard M. Wolfe]

I didn't figure it, but it typically takes more than it appears. When I rip lumber to produce narrow stock, it seems that I always end with stuff that can't be used (3/4" wide, etc). And you will have a lot of rails, stiles and molding for that piece. For solid stock, cabinet men typically allow 20-30% for waste.

[Alex Shanku]

I didn't figure it, but it typically takes more than it appears. When I rip lumber to produce narrow stock, it seems that I always end with stuff that can't be used (3/4" wide, etc). And you will have a lot of rails, stiles and molding for that piece. For solid stock, cabinet men typically allow 20-30% for waste.


And in this case, if you decide to use cherry (assuming you dont want any sap wood), factoring in a little more waste may not hurt.

[Kevin Godshall]

+1 on Lee's thoughts...

One of the biggest reasons to figure it out yourself, is that it gives you the opportunity to make the crucial decisions of solid vs ply, "is this piece (size or cut) available or can I make it?", "how am I going to make that with my experience/tooling?", "I don't like this aspect in the design and want to change it to this", etc etc.

For example: on the sides, I would be asking myself if I wanted to make grooved rails and stiles with center panels, or solid sides with trim pieces attached to the face. How am I going to join the sides to the face? (face frame? 45 miters? a special cut 2x2 that hides both side and face edges?)

Lots of time and money savings come from sitting down and spending the time of going thru a design and developing a workable plan and accurate cutting/shopping list.

Good Luck with it. Would love to see pix of the finished product.

[Tony Bilello]

A board foot is a square foot at 1" thick. When you buy 3/4" stock, you are actually buying and paying for planed down 1" thick stock. So, for a quick calculation, 1 board foot is equivelent to 1 square foot at 3/4" thick.
I usually buy the longest and widest boards (under 12 inches) that I can get. This cuts down on waste.
I always add 20% to that total for waste. Dont be cheap with your wood or you will get into trouble. You will need some waste for test cuts and set-up with joinery. Also you cant use 100% of a board so that is waste and finally to remake a piece you cut wrong.

[Steve Griffin]

I would figure the rough square footage of your project and then add precisely 15-100% extra.

How much extra you order is really what it's all about.

-how much waste do you expect? how many knots, sapwood, split ends does your wood choice have? How does it machine?

-how much does grain selection matter? Is this a high end heirloom piece or a simple project?

-is the wood something you plan to use in the future? if so, you can order a greater quantity.

-how difficult a project is it? are you going to make some mistakes?

-how big a project is it? the bigger, the less waste.

So, as you can see, estimating wood quantities is not easy. Let me know if you ever figure it out, because even after decades of woodworking I'm constantly trying to improve my estimating.

Good luck, Steve