Board foot vs weight in lbs

[Jim Labiak]

When I first started turning in the eighties, whenever I had the need to purchase wood, I was charged by the board foot. Now when I need to purchase wood (usually from the logger or mill), they want to charge by weight. I dislike being asked to buy wood by weight as I always conclude I'm paying more than I should especially if the logs have been freshly cut with a high moisture content. In reality, the difference in weight between a chunk of maple burl a week after it's been cut versus six months after it's been cut may not effect the price significantly but it irks me. What's the wrong with using board foot as our standard measure?

How do others feel about paying for wood by weight? I apologize if this has been discussed recently but I haven't seen any postings on this topic.

 

[robo hippy]

I have seen large burls, well, basketball size and bigger sell by the pound, and some of the exotics sell by the pound, but never boards.

robo hippy

 

[Bill Boehme]

When I first started turning in the eighties, whenever I had the need to purchase wood, I was charged by the board foot. Now when I need to purchase wood (usually from the logger or mill), they want to charge by weight. I dislike being asked to buy wood by weight as I always conclude I'm paying more than I should especially if the logs have been freshly cut with a high moisture content. In reality, the difference in weight between a chunk of maple burl a week after it's been cut versus six months after it's been cut may not effect the price significantly but it irks me. What's the wrong with using board foot as our standard measure?

How do others feel about paying for wood by weight? I apologize if this has been discussed recently but I haven't seen any postings on this topic.

Considering that it would be harder than heck to calculate the board feet of some odd shaped non symmetrical burl or most any other kind of turning wood, if you insisted on paying for it by the BF, they might need to tack on a computation fee for the overhead expense. Also, don't forget that when you buy dimensioned lumber by the BF that you are not getting the volume indicated by the number of BF since the number refers to the dimensions before milling -- that part is irrelevant to turning wood. Even if you were buying rough cut hardwood, milling is still required. Finally, there is a big difference in what you are looking for when buying lumber as opposed to buying wood for turning. Not much turning is done with SYP or fir nor is much construction or furniture made with exotic burls.

 

[Jim Labiak]

Arithmetic

Considering that it would be harder than heck to calculate the board feet of some odd shaped non symmetrical burl or most any other kind of turning wood, if you insisted on paying for it by the BF, they might need to tack on a computation fee for the overhead expense. Also, don't forget that when you buy dimensioned lumber by the BF that you are not getting the volume indicated by the number of BF since the number refers to the dimensions before milling -- that part is irrelevant to turning wood. Even if you were buying rough cut hardwood, milling is still required. Finally, there is a big difference in what you are looking for when buying lumber as opposed to buying wood for turning. Not much turning is done with SYP or fir nor is much construction or furniture made with exotic burls.

I thought someone would use the old "too hard to calculate" excuse. I've worked with suppliers for years that would round to the half-inch and just plug the numbers into their calculators even for the most irregular shaped pieces. Today's construction calculators usually have a function key for calculating board foot so even guys like me can perform the arithmetic. However a point that Bill makes unintentionally that I hadn't considered relates to which is more inaccurate. Obtaining a fair measurement on an irregular chunk of burl or being charged for a soaking wet bowl blank?

I still have a problem with paying by the pound. When I'm told that the selling price for a species of wood is $7.50 BF, I can visualize a BF in my mind and even check the arithmetic versus the dimensions to make sure I'm not being overcharged for a piece of wood. But when I'm paying fifty cents a pound, I can't wrap my mind around how much wood, in terms of dimensions, I will receive for forty dollars. I still need the dimensions for it to be meaningful. Does a cubic foot of wood always weigh the same? Of course not because it depends upon the density and moisture content. So if we need to know the size of a piece of wood in order to know if it meets our turning needs, why not charge by the size (BF) rather than the weight? Am I being too esoteric? If so, I apologize and will try to be more down to earth in my discussion.

 

[Barbara Gill]

Bill, go to the Sawing and Drying Forum on WoodWeb and ask the sawyers there. I have run a sawmill for many years and the only wood I have sold by the pound was Cherry Burl. I have sold chunks of wood for turning. It does cost more in labor to handle the chunks and end coat them. These I usually just figure a price based more on my time than on the amount of wood.

 

[David Wilkins]

I was given a simple formula. Take the price of the wood and multiply it by ten, that should be the value of the finished product. That offered a simple go-nogo easy to do mental math. I understand why it is easier some times to charge by weight, what cheezes me off is when I get charged a fee for dressing two or three sides of a piece left over from someone elses order.

 

[MichaelMouse]

Weight? Pulpwood is sold by weight, but I have yet to see saw logs sold save by BF on the (buyer's) liar's stick. You are correct in your assumption that there can be a BIG difference between fresh green summer cut and the stack that's been cut a month. Seems they'd have to quote, as a minimum lbs@%, though above the FSP most meters are pretty worthless.

If you don't agree with someone's volumetric calculus on odd shapes, don't buy it. Only sure way is by immersion (Eureka!), but that says nothing about quality, either.

 

[Joe Greiner]

Board feet are useful for buying and selling boards, usually dry. An odd-shaped blank is not a board, so calculating its board-foot measurement is both meaningless and difficult; much easier to simply weigh the blank, and charge by unit cost. And unit costs themselves are distilled from many factors of production cost, distributed over a large volume of work, whether board feet or pounds. And then adjusted for market conditions.

As far as paying for wastewater is concerned, bear in mind that when you buy a watermelon or other vegetable produce by the pound, you pay the same price for stems, seeds, and the rind, as you do for the edible parts.

 

[john lucas]

I guess that's why I don't buy wood. Although I would love to turn burls it really irritates me to buy water. I know why they do it. It's hard to dry wood, it would take forever to dry a piece 7" thick, and you would encur some losses. So I don't have any ill feelings toward the dealers I simply choose not to buy it.

 

[Orlando Roman]

Wow!
I didn't know you had to go to so much trouble to get wood,I figured that since must of you live down south,east or west that it would be easy to get it.On my side there is so much exotic wood(Free) that I would never be able to finish it all in many life times.So come over, haul some wood!!😀
Orlando.

 

[Bill Boehme]

I suppose that for me the question is really academic anyway since, like John Lucas and Orlando Roman, buying wood for turning is a foreign concept. With all of the free wood available, buying it is not very attractive whether sold by the BF, kilogram, or color.

... a point that Bill makes unintentionally that I hadn't considered relates to which is more inaccurate. Obtaining a fair measurement on an irregular chunk of burl or being charged for a soaking wet bowl blank?

It wasn't unintentional, just a subtle implication. There are many ways to buy wood and other products and it depends a lot on the way that you get it:

• I have paid for hardwood mulch (not bark mulch) by the ton, but they determine a ton as being what a full size pickup truck bed can hold when level full (a volume measurement).
• Firewood is sold by the cord. A proper cord should be quartered and stacked tightly, but there are all sorts of variations in what dealers try to pass off as a cord.
• Dimensioned lumber for construction is sold by the BF except that you will not find an actual 144 cubic inches of wood in a BF.
• Furniture grade hardwood is sold by the BF, but it is typically sold either as sawn or skip planed on one side with possibly one edge sawn approximately straight and it frequently comes in random lengths. A rough eyeball measurement is made of the "average" width when estimating BF.
• Woodturners get their wood for free while furniture makers pay a premium price for the same species.
• House painters pay for paint by the gallon while artists pay for paint by the color.
• I buy potatoes by the pound while the farmer sells them by the bushel.
• I prefer to turn wet green wood while a builder wants his lumber to be kiln dried to at least 17% MC.
• A builder or furniture maker would not accept wood that a turner would consider "special". Conversely, most turners are not interested in turning lumber.

... I can visualize a BF in my mind and even check the arithmetic versus the dimensions to make sure I'm not being overcharged for a piece of wood. But when I'm paying fifty cents a pound, I can't wrap my mind around how much wood, in terms of dimensions, I will receive for forty dollars.......

How about just looking at it and deciding if the amount of money justifies what you want as the end product? Basically, that is what a furniture maker is doing in a round about way when he sees the cost of the wood needed for a project and weighs that against the end product. The buyer of the end product doesn't really care about the BF.

Board feet are useful for buying and selling boards, usually dry. An odd-shaped blank is not a board, so calculating its board-foot measurement is both meaningless and difficult; much easier to simply weigh the blank, and charge by unit cost. And unit costs themselves are distilled from many factors of production cost, distributed over a large volume of work, whether board feet or pounds. And then adjusted for market conditions.

As far as paying for wastewater is concerned, bear in mind that when you buy a watermelon or other vegetable produce by the pound, you pay the same price for stems, seeds, and the rind, as you do for the edible parts.

Joe, you pretty well summarized my feelings on this question. And, if Saxman would really prefer BF to weight, it is no great feat to do a conversion from the weight of dripping wet green wood to volume in BF (this would give the most conservative conversion). The only question remaining then would be do you prefer the BF calculation to be adjusted to provide the answer as dimensioned lumber BF or as rough-sawn BF.

And, why complain about waste water, but not about waste wood when a turning is hollowed out?

I don't do much weighing or dimensional measuring of my free turning wood since neither of those factors affect the price. I am sure that not many woodturners who sell their work do so by either the BF or by the pound.

 

[steelguy]

Hijinx and Hijacks

Lets see, Saxman asked about board feet vs weight on burls and got an immediate lesson from the forum experts on how ill-advised he is to be buying wood, when any real, experienced turner would only use free wood!! However, the same experienced folks know that you need vfd drives, not Reeves drives, big brute lathes, not small free lathes, high end grinding wheels, not simple grey wheels........

Surprising as it may seem, there are folks in this world who enjoy seeing what interesting exotic burls look like and how difficult they may be to turn. However that is contrary to those that like long, wet stringers wrapping around their $6000 lathes🙂

The simple asnwer is that burls are sold by the pound because it is impossible to correctly calculate ("guess") their volume. They are harvested, shipped, imported, and resold by the pound or the piece - water and all. Actually, if you calculate the board feet, the cost will scare the hell out of you, or give you a warm feeling that you have something that folks who turn free wood never will.

To each his own.

Jerry

 

[MichaelMouse]

You had me fooled, Saxman, by saying that you were buying from the logger or mill. That means BF all the way, to me. More than BF, the scale allows a higher price per BF for veneer and sawlogs which will produce a larger proportion of 6" or greater boards.

As I said, pulpwood is sold by the pound. Used to be by the cord, which Bill notwithstanding is a 4x4x8 stack of wood - more or less. They cut pulpwood at 100" here, so there's a bonus. Buying by the cord was a bad deal for the mills, because a few strategically placed twisted logs could make up a bunch of volume as well as cut down on the weight of the load, both of which favored the hauler. Not surprisingly, the change to weight took the jobber (logger) largely out of the cartage business because it didn't make enough to justify paying someone who could have been in the woods instead.

That's what you're paying for with burls, blisters and other uglies. They used to be left in the woods, and still are many places, because they mean extra cuts, perhaps loss of a full stick of wood. They don't fit easily into a clam, so they have to be wrestled ... goes on and on. You're paying the hauler for his time scrounging, hefting, and carting. Not surprisingly cartage is by the pound.

You want to get the best deal when buying? Avoid the lightest pieces, they're mostly bark you can't hold together. Get the heavy ones.

 

[Jim Labiak]

Forum Experts ?

Lets see, Saxman asked about board feet vs weight on burls and got an immediate lesson from the forum experts on how ill-advised he is to be buying wood, when any real, experienced turner would only use free wood!! However, the same experienced folks know that you need vfd drives, not Reeves drives, big brute lathes, not small free lathes, high end grinding wheels, not simple grey wheels........

Surprising as it may seem, there are folks in this world who enjoy seeing what interesting exotic burls look like and how difficult they may be to turn. However that is contrary to those that like long, wet stringers wrapping around their $6000 lathes🙂

The simple asnwer is that burls are sold by the pound because it is impossible to correctly calculate ("guess") their volume. They are harvested, shipped, imported, and resold by the pound or the piece - water and all. Actually, if you calculate the board feet, the cost will scare the hell out of you, or give you a warm feeling that you have something that folks who turn free wood never will.

To each his own.

Jerry

Thanks Jerry. I appreciate your response. I had chosen not to respond to the quips about buying wood but will toss back a few words. In my younger years, I would often spend my weekends planking out logs with my Alaskan Mill and a thirty inch bar on my chainsaw. I would whack away at logs of Western Maple, Alder, and whatever else was available in sufficient size to take home to my woodlot as a treasure. There was satisfaction being in the outdoors harvesting that wood. If it didn't go on the lathe than it was good stuff for the wood stove. My back (and my brain) now dictate that it's smarter and easier to keep in touch with several of our local arborists if all I want is nice chunk of wood. Additionally, with so many environmental restrictions on wood burning stoves, we converted to natural gas.

There are only so many bowls, vessels and treen you want to turn from a nice piece of straight grained wood unless you are turning for your livelyhood. I personally believe that shape and design are the first requiste for a well turned piece. Grain, color, and size do matter, that is, turning a twenty-eight inch diameter platter has it's challenges but turning that platter from a striking piece of Tiger Myrtle certainly adds a dimension that just a pleasant shape will not provide to a finished turning. Further, when a friend calls and asks me to turn an Urn for their dearly departed fido, I'm not likely to grab a piece of Western Maple from my backyard wood stash that has been home to Post Beetles. I ordinarily will find a piece of wood that has some striking grain or color and is free from holes. Believe it or not, I may actually feel the need to pay my friendly logger/mill for a chuck of wood with some special grain pattern or color that will compliment a nicely turned piece.

Which brings me to my final point. I like using specialty woods in my turnings but like most of you, I can't afford to turn a salad bowl from cocobolo and I doubt if I have any friends that would appreciate such a prize. So in my retirement years when I have sufficiently reduced the list of honey do's, I hope to become a segmented turner. And yes, I will continue to buy wood. Even worse, I'm going to buy rock and turn a few vessels from alabaster and soap stone. Such heresy!

jim

 

[Jim Labiak]

By the Pound

You had me fooled, Saxman, by saying that you were buying from the logger or mill. That means BF all the way, to me. More than BF, the scale allows a higher price per BF for veneer and sawlogs which will produce a larger proportion of 6" or greater boards.

As I said, pulpwood is sold by the pound. Used to be by the cord, which Bill notwithstanding is a 4x4x8 stack of wood - more or less. They cut pulpwood at 100" here, so there's a bonus. Buying by the cord was a bad deal for the mills, because a few strategically placed twisted logs could make up a bunch of volume as well as cut down on the weight of the load, both of which favored the hauler. Not surprisingly, the change to weight took the jobber (logger) largely out of the cartage business because it didn't make enough to justify paying someone who could have been in the woods instead.

That's what you're paying for with burls, blisters and other uglies. They used to be left in the woods, and still are many places, because they mean extra cuts, perhaps loss of a full stick of wood. They don't fit easily into a clam, so they have to be wrestled ... goes on and on. You're paying the hauler for his time scrounging, hefting, and carting. Not surprisingly cartage is by the pound.

You want to get the best deal when buying? Avoid the lightest pieces, they're mostly bark you can't hold together. Get the heavy ones.

I didn't mislead you. Loggers in the NW who operate their own mills (usually as a sideline to harvesting logs for larger mills) do sell wood such as figured or burled Western Maple, Pacific Madrone, Myrtle, etc. by the pound. And you're correct, it's often left behind for the enterprising logger to salvage.

jim

 

[Orlando Roman]

Hear this guy's!
(Not to cause envy on any of you that by choice or not have to live in a city or can't get your hand's on free wood) About a month ago I got a call from a friend from the other side of the island,I live on the Northwest,he is on the east side at the foot hills of the "Yunque rain forest"the only of such in USA territory,recently we had some real bad weather, this 4 foot diameter trunk x 70' long Mahogany tree felled in his property,been that it still is in US federal property he had to ask for permission to the Rain forest Officer to remove it,after he got all the paper work done he calls me to haul it away but I had to declined the offer because is 2 hours away and didn't want to mess up my F-150,"Can you believe that"!!! Mohagany sells here for $7 to $8 bucks for 1''x 12'' a board.😱🙄😀

 

[Barbara Gill]

When I first started turning in the eighties, whenever I had the need to purchase wood, I was charged by the board foot. Now when I need to purchase wood (usually from the logger or mill), they want to charge by weight. I dislike being asked to buy wood by weight as I always conclude I'm paying more than I should especially if the logs have been freshly cut with a high moisture content. In reality, the difference in weight between a chunk of maple burl a week after it's been cut versus six months after it's been cut may not effect the price significantly but it irks me. What's the wrong with using board foot as our standard measure?

How do others feel about paying for wood by weight? I apologize if this has been discussed recently but I haven't seen any postings on this topic.

You are correct about 6 mos. not affecting the price of an uncut burl because of water loss; the loss, if any, would be minimal. Another thing to consider is that often a whole burl may be less per unit than a cut one because of the uncertainty of soundness. Whenever I want to know the current price for burl or a special wood I research different sites where wood is sold to get a feel for the market and selling practices.

 

[Steve Worcester]

.....Surprising as it may seem, there are folks in this world who enjoy seeing what interesting exotic burls look like and how difficult they may be to turn. However that is contrary to those that like long, wet stringers wrapping around their $6000 lathes🙂
....

I get your point, although the presentation is a bit too satirical, but I do buy wood, exotics and natives.

There is a logger in the northwest who sends me pictures of burls all the time, sells it for $2/lb (I think that was the last going rate). I will usually opt to buy it at symposiums or stores where I can see all the sides and access the figure myself.

Free wood usually stays outside in the shed, while the bought wood has it's own bedroom.

 

[waltben]

I've three places I'll buy wood these days. One's local to me and specializes in high-figured domestics. They sell dried turning wood blanks and boards based on what they can get, not by a standard BF method. The second is also local and specializes in domestic hardwood lumber, and I get the poplar I make hat blocks from there - standardized BF pricing. The third is near Jacksonville, NC and is a direct importer of exotics. Great pricing for what they sell, and it's standardized BF. They do let you pick through their stacks though. Everything else is either found wood, cut it myself wood, or from a MD or VA Dept. of Transportation dump ($20 a truck load of anything there). I've never experienced pricing by weight, although I also haven't turned many burls lately.

 

[john lucas]

I certainly didn't mean to sound like I was putting anyone down for buying wood. I do buy smaller pieces of exotic wood because they are fun to turn. My problem is my market. I can't sell expensive items very well so it simply doesn't make sense to buy a $100 burl and then have to sell it for $200 or more. It will sit on the shelf. I can turn a free piece of wanlut and only have my time and consumables to take into account before making a profit.
Spending $16 to $25 on small pieces of exotic is something I can absorb financially and will usually get my money back out of those.
As we all know, you charge what the market will bear. Obviously burls sell whatever the price. I see guys at the symposiums walking out with 2 wheelers full. I've owned cars that were cheaper than that bundle of wood. I don't hold it against them or the sellers, it just doesn't work for me.

 

[fgvanatta]

"Burl Feet"

For those large, misshapen hunks of wood I always use

Burl Feet: derived by counting the total number of "spikes" and multiplying by the diameter of the burl.

Aussie burls sell in the range of 10¢ to 25¢ a BF, while those with larger spikes - like some Maple and Buckeye burls - go for $1 to $5 a BF.

Hope this helps . . .

 

[Barbara Gill]

I certainly didn't mean to sound like I was putting anyone down for buying wood. I do buy smaller pieces of exotic wood because they are fun to turn. My problem is my market. I can't sell expensive items very well so it simply doesn't make sense to buy a $100 burl and then have to sell it for $200 or more. It will sit on the shelf. I can turn a free piece of wanlut and only have my time and consumables to take into account before making a profit.
Spending $16 to $25 on small pieces of exotic is something I can absorb financially and will usually get my money back out of those.
As we all know, you charge what the market will bear. Obviously burls sell whatever the price. I see guys at the symposiums walking out with 2 wheelers full. I've owned cars that were cheaper than that bundle of wood. I don't hold it against them or the sellers, it just doesn't work for me.

John, I certainly did not think what you said was out of line. I think someone was just cranky.

 

[Bill Boehme]

For those large, misshapen hunks of wood I always use

Burl Feet: derived by counting the total number of "spikes" and multiplying by the diameter of the burl.

Aussie burls sell in the range of 10¢ to 25¢ a BF, while those with larger spikes - like some Maple and Buckeye burls - go for $1 to $5 a BF.

Hope this helps . . .

It was a great help. It brings up another measurement for buying burls:

Burl Swirls -- the number of swirls times the diameter times the weight of ones pocketbook.

John, I did not see your post as putting anyone down. Taking advantage of plentiful wood that is available for free is just an attractive way of getting great turning wood without the angst of messing it up.

 

[steelguy]

Cranky -Yep!

John, Bill, Barb, et. al.

I'll admit to being cranky at midnight, after a 480 mile day trip to Saranac, NY and back. Delivered a bunch of custom frames to a pro nature photographer friend of mine in Saranac Lake, NY and had a nice visit. I then continued my journey 35 more miles to Saranac, NY to a wonderful hardwood source and "scored" some nice 4/4 furniture grade cherry, a wonderfully grained black walnut 12/4 plank, 12" x 5 ft - great for the bases for laminated rim bowls, and enough free 12/4 a 12" cherry shorts for 3 or 4 shallow bowls. It was a stellar, yet tiring day!

In my shop, free is good as long as it has been dried somehow. Maybe my outlook was colored by the split log Adirondack bench that I built at my son's summer BSA camp. It created a buzzing racket, followed by an invasion of critters in my family room.:cool2:

You folks are very helpful to all. I am, however, sensitive to those whose sincere questions are minimized. In re-reading the posts and considering my familiarity with those who posted, I admit to over-reacting.

Hope to see some of you in Hartford - where wood is absolutely priced by the piece!!

Jerry

 

[john lucas]

Jerry It's a common occurance for threads to get off topic. The one that get always gets me is someone looking for a lathe in the $500 price range and everyone starts telling them about Oneway, Stubby, Serious, Robust, and other lathes that cost more than my car. It used to upset me, now I just laugh.
those of us who frequent the board know that you have been very helpful.

 

[Jim Labiak]

Thanks

You are correct about 6 mos. not affecting the price of an uncut burl because of water loss; the loss, if any, would be minimal. Another thing to consider is that often a whole burl may be less per unit than a cut one because of the uncertainty of soundness. Whenever I want to know the current price for burl or a special wood I research different sites where wood is sold to get a feel for the market and selling practices.

Thanks to Barbara, Steelguy, and Mr. Mouse for their thoughts on buying specialty wood. To Orlando for making me feel really bad about his Mahogony tree. Oh, and I sure learned a lot about buying fruit and vegtables - real helpful. But Steve had the best comment: "Free wood usually stays outside in the shed, while the bought wood has it's own bedroom." That really is how it should work but I don't think that will ever happen at my abode.