Question on amount of Project lumber to buy

[Johnnyy Johnson]

I have a RP doors and drawer face project coming up. I have measured and determined that I will need about 50 BF to do the job. If the boards are say..a little above average in quality, what would be a fair amount to buy extra to account for minor mistakes and not being able to use certain parts of the board. I was thinking if I need 50 buy 65??

Thanks
Johnny

[Steve Jenkins]

I'd say that would be a minimum. Think about the widths you need and the lengths. If you are making your stiles 3" and the boards are 5" wide you hve just lost 40% and if 78" works good for a combined total length and you have to buy 8 footers you have lost another 18%. I try to take a rough cutlist with me and pick the best sizes to get what I need.

[Glen Butler]

I have found that if I take the final board footage in the finished product and add 50% I get pretty close. My last project calculated to 163 board feet; I used ~250. I originally planned on 200 and felt I was getting pretty good board usage. Luckily I had 50 bd ft laying around for a different project.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I'd take the cutlist with me and take into consideration any grain matching you might want to do if you are using a clear finish.

[Chuck Isaacson]

Buy about 20% more. That way you can start to build a little collection for the next project. It never hurts to have some wood on hand.

[glenn bradley]

I find that when selecting the areas that I will make a board from it does not always leave scrap that can be used for another piece on the project. I would say your guesstimate of 30% sounds right is you are talking about material already milled to thickness. 50% should be safe given quality rough material. Sometimes its less which just feeds the cut off bin for some other project down the road.

[Rod Sheridan]

I've found that the estimate Glenn gave you is correct for most of my projects.

I buy aproximately 50% more rough material than is needed, after all, about 25% goes into the cyclone.........Rod.

[johnny means]

If you can, avoid buying shorts and narrows. You will get a lot less waste if your widths are 10" or better and if your lengths are ≥ 12'. It will cost you more per bf., but will create much less waste.

[Joe Chritz]

If I am not purchasing from a cutlist and just winging it I will almost always buy between 50 and 100% extra.

Especially at 50 BF or so you will be very close to the price break most places give at 100 BF levels.

Joe

[Lee Schierer]

I buy about 5-10% more than I need. However, I buy from a source that is all dimensioned lumber and 100% clear wood. No knots, chips or splits in what I buy. I use an optimization program and other than grain matching it figures out the best layout for the pieces need from the pieces I purchased. Scrap is generally 6" or less in length.

If you are buying rough cut mill run material then 50% extra is probably a good number.

[Steve Griffin]

Between 15% TO 100% extra will give you precisely and exactly the absolute perfect amount. :p

My two favorite methods to purchase wood are as follows:

1)90% method. Buy 90% of what you think you will need, and then towards the end of the project determine how much more you need. Obviously this method only works if your supplier is easy to access. This method seems to work especially well for carpentry.

2)200% method. Buy twice as much as you think you will need if it is a wood that you anticipate using again. Not only will you have a head start on the next project, you will be able to have more selection for your first project.

If I can't use either of those methods, I order between 15-100% extra, depending on about 42 factors such as size of job, cost of material etc etc..

-Steve

[Johnnyy Johnson]

Thanks...These are all great methods. The best thing here is that I see a need to buy some % more and the friend who I am doing the cabs for needs to hear that all you guys agree on it. I just don't want to convince him that its my idea, but rather the standard way to do business.

Thanks
JJ

[John M. Smith]

Ijust finished doing some raised panels in cherry, and used double the board footage of what I needed for square footage of doors. IE 100 square feet of doors required 200 board feet of lumber. Was really good stock as far as knots go, but lost on edges and ends for sap. Oak doors usually reqire abot 75 % more.

John

[Brendan Plavis]

For the computer desk I am doing, I estimate I have bought over 70 of the stuff estimated for a 24 some odd foot project. Now given I dont have any fancy jointers/planters/et ceter, that contributes to a portion of it(dodo me wasnt looking and ended up buying a board as straight as some of the Province Town residents.) But, then again, I ended up with a lot of medium sized cutoffs(all I have use of is a mitre saw from 1980( it has no hold downs, so unless I can clamp it down, then I dont cut it(it throws mucho splinters at the user), a jigsaw, and a tablesaw that both doesnt cut true, and that scares the living daylights out of me.) Moral of the story, is its very often difficult to guage what you will need, unless you actually sit down and calculate the yield per board. Buy more than you need, and store it for your next project if you run over(doesnt work in my case since the garage(aka my little workshop) is the family dumpster, and people dont know how to keep their hands off of my stuff(I come back today, and not only are all the tools I was using moved, my whole project was dragged across the concrete floor.... I am ready to kill the family...) then its no problem...

-Brendan

[Tony Bilello]

The most efficient use of lumber is to buy the longest/widest boards you can within reason, like 9" to 12" in width. If you do this, 20% extra should be sufficient. I have never been caught short with the 20% rule. Oh, one more thing, quality lumber always becomes more efficient.