Board Feet

[chrisb0109]

TThis may seem like a stupid question to professionals but what is a board foot?

Most of the sites I would like to get wood from sell by board feet. For instance what does 8/4 mean or 4/4?

[Guitarfrenzy]

A board foot is simply the amount of wood contained in a board 1 inch thick, 12 inches long, and 12 inches wide. And 8/4 is 2 inches thick.. 4/4 one inch..

[westhemann]

8/4 means 8 -1/4s....or 2 inches

4/4 is one inch....understand?

board feet is not really useful except for pricing for me

when you get your plank...they convert the width,height,and thickness into b.f.

and that number is what you are charged on

http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/footulator.htm

b.f. calculator

so your basic strat body blank is about 4 bf....and with alder that is about $16 or so..but you usually get it a hair big..so $20

[chrisb0109]

so say a piece of wood is saif to be 2 board feet. How do I know the exact dimmensions?

[skibum5545]

it's width x length x thickness divided by 144

a strat blank is 14x21x2, or 588, divided by 144 = 4.083 boardfeet.

Edit: in answer to the second question, you don't. It comes random width and length, sometimes surfaced, sometimes not. You call the people (assuming you're talking about online) and ask for a specific size. They tell you what they have dimension-wise, and how many boardfeet it is. You get the piece closest in size to what they have. Voila!