The Board Foot

Whether you are dealing with the local sawmill or buying salvage, you need to be familiar with the term board foot, because that is the unit by which timber is sold.

A board foot (BF) is a square foot of wood one inch thick, or 144 cubic inches (2,360 cubic centimeters) of material. Every linear foot (LF) of a full one-by-twelve board is a board foot, but every linear foot of a full two-by-six is also a BF, because it also contains 144 cubic inches of wood (2 x 6 x 12=144). A linear foot (LF) is also called a running foot at many sawmills.

This lumber scale gives the number of board feet with virtually every size of rough-cut lumber you are likely to want, in lengths from eight feet (2.44 meters) to twenty feet (6 meters).

Lumber scale, in board feet (BF)

already leaning, is to tie a cable to it and pull it down with a piece of heavy equipment, such as a tracked excavator, or a large backhoe, bulldozer, or front — end loader. Yes, a few timbers might be damaged, but this damage will usually occur at the ends of timbers, where mortise and tenon joints are torqued during the pull. With “timber framing for the rest of us,” you wont be using those old joints anyway In effect, you will be just losing some length. You can expect to get a good iz-footer out of an old 14-foot beam, for example.

Dress for the job with tough work clothing, leather or other heavy-duty work gloves, and heavy footwear with thick soles. If working inside a bam, wear a hardhat.