Hi,

I am planning on building a baby's cot from beech. I've been browsing
around various timber merchant websites looking at prices, and noticed
that most lists give prices for various sizes of `board'. Is board
finished, or unfinished - will I need to plane it to get a smooth
finish? If the wood is unfinished, how much should I expect to have to
plane off? For example, if I want the finished wood to have a
cross-section of 1"x2", what dimension of board should I get?

thanks,

dan.

Lumber in board feet means 1" thick by 12" wide by 12" long or
any combination that is equal to that like 2" thick by 6" wide by 12"
long or 3" thick by 4" wide by 12" long. Since the boards aren't
dimensioned yet the measurements are not exact but a formula is used to
price it in "board" feet. Also, rough lumber is not called 1" but 4/4
(4 quarters), 2" is 8/4 and 3" is 12/4 and so on. The rough lumber
should be at least a true 1" thick unlike linear lumber terminology
that refers to a 1X4 that is actually 3/4" by 3 3/4" etc, etc...
Linear feet is what you buy at the lumber yard in already milled
"dimensioned" lumber that is finished on 4 sides (aka) s4s.
The rough lumber that is measured in board feet can be milled per
your specs for a higher price per board foot. s1s = surfaced one side,
s2s, s3s and s4s surfaced on all 4 sides. s2s means 1 face is surfaced
and 1 edge is surfaced so you will need to plane the 3rd side to the
needed dimension and you will have a straight edge to use against a
table saw fence to dimension the other edge.
And to really complicate matters your yield from rough lumber can
vary greatly per species because of waste. With partially surfaced
millwork (jointing and planing) you "should" get a better yield but if
the millwork is poor your yield may not be any better than working from
scratch.
That ought to be enough to confuse you further.
Good Luck!
Robert Smith


wrote:
Hi,

I am planning on building a baby's cot from beech. I've been browsing
around various timber merchant websites looking at prices, and
noticed
that most lists give prices for various sizes of `board'. Is board
finished, or unfinished - will I need to plane it to get a smooth
finish? If the wood is unfinished, how much should I expect to have
to
plane off? For example, if I want the finished wood to have a
cross-section of 1"x2", what dimension of board should I get?

thanks,

dan.

On 7 May 2005 14:30:21 -0700, "
wrote:

I am planning on building a baby's cot from beech.

Good choice of timber, and should be pretty cheap.

I've been browsing
around various timber merchant websites looking at prices, and noticed
that most lists give prices for various sizes of `board'.

Is board finished, or unfinished

Generally a sawn price, with planing extra if you want it. But it's
sawn to size, and what they quote is what you get.

Planing typically loses 1/4" on those dimensions, but it'll still be
referred to as a ' 1" board ', even if it's now more like 3/4" thick.

A real timberyard will offer two sets of prices. One is for rough sawn
boards (slices of logs), the other for timber sawn square to size. The
latter is much more expensive, but the wastage is less because you're
only buying useful square sections of it. A rough board could be very
tapered in ways you can't make use of.

My local guys (and good prices) are he
http://www.interestingtimbers.co.uk/

- will I need to plane it to get a smooth finish?

Up to you. If you can, you should probably buy it rough sawn - much
cheaper that way. A cot doesn't usually have many wide panels, so it's
feasible to hand plane this, even if you don't have a thicknesser.

If the wood is unfinished, how much should I expect to have to
plane off?

Almost nothing to smooth it, a great deal if you're taking out cupping.
More depends on the stability of the sawmill and seasoning work, not the
surface quality. For narrow timber, 1/4" isn't a bad worst case. Wide
boards from small logs could be much worse.

For example, if I want the finished wood to have a
cross-section of 1"x2", what dimension of board should I get?

You don't need it to _be_ 1"x2". You're not a production workshop, so
you can be flexible about exact sizing. Buy your boards and adjust the
exact sizing to suit them. It's cabinetry, not car production.

--
Cats have nine lives, which is why they rarely post to Usenet.

Hi,

I am planning on building a baby's cot from beech. I've been browsing
around various timber merchant websites looking at prices, and noticed
that most lists give prices for various sizes of `board'. Is board
finished, or unfinished - will I need to plane it to get a smooth
finish? If the wood is unfinished, how much should I expect to have to
plane off? For example, if I want the finished wood to have a
cross-section of 1"x2", what dimension of board should I get?

thanks,

dan.


The idea is based upon the thickness of the lumber in multiple 1/4's of inches,
you want wood that is 1" thick so you want 5/4 lumber at whatever width you
buy it, or is available. The reason 5/4 will be 1" is because of the planing done
before it gets to the lumber yard, they take of 1/8" per side of each board. The
same result will be found with any other size standard, 4/4 (four quarters) will
be an actual 3/4, and 8/4 will be an actual 1-3/4" thick, but very smooth faces
usually.

Then the lumber is usually priced by the "board foot" which is 12"x12"x1"
You will still be paying for that lost 1/4".

At any given square or rectangular thickness, width and length this is the
calculation:

( ' = foot, " = inch, / = division, x = multiply and "by" )

Units of Measure & Terminology
BF = Board Foot, a Board Foot is equal to:
The length of the board in feet' Multiplied by the width of the board
in inches" Divided by 12 Then Multiplied/ by the thickness of the board
in inches" Length' x Width" / 12 x Thickness"

Example:
Size: 1" x 6" x 2' would be worked this way, math: 2' x 6" / 12 x 1" = 1 BF
OR
You can do the calculation using all inch measurements for tallying smaller
pieces of lumber: Thickness" x width" x length" / 144"
Example:
1" x 6" x 2' would be worked this way: 1" x 6" x 24" / 144" = 1 bf

....hope this helps,

--
Alex - newbie_neander in woodworking
cravdraa_at-yahoo_dot-com
not my site: http://www.e-sword.net/

Good luck man. Buying the lumber is the easiest part.

On 7 May 2005 16:53:39 -0700, "Knotbob" wrote:

Lumber in board feet

....isn't found in the UK, where the OP is posting from

No-one uses "board feet" over here. It's either linear feet / metres of
a defined section, or cube feet if you're buying sawn logs.

On Sat, 7 May 2005 19:17:02 -0700, "AAvK" wrote:

you want wood that is 1" thick so you want 5/4 lumber

The OP is in the UK. You'll never hear "5/4" used as a measure.

And we tend to saw to 1", then plane down from that, not saw to 5/4.

"Andy Dingley" wrote in message
...
On 7 May 2005 16:53:39 -0700, "Knotbob" wrote:

Lumber in board feet

...isn't found in the UK, where the OP is posting from

No-one uses "board feet" over here. It's either linear feet / metres of
a defined section, or cube feet if you're buying sawn logs.

Are cube feet the same as 12 BF, or are some cheats already applied?

On Sun, 8 May 2005 08:30:14 -0400, "George" george@least wrote:

Are cube feet the same as 12 BF,

Approximately - there's still some question over the definition of "an
inch" when applied to timber thickness, and how to measure the usable
area of an irregular board often depends on how well you know the
sawyer. One of my local yards (which I don't use) measures the
"bounding box" of a board, the one I do use often lets me measure boards
myself, depending on how I plan to saw them down and then just charges
for that! (so long as I'm not taking the ****).


--
Cats have nine lives, which is why they rarely post to Usenet.