WOODWORKING QUIZ for 17 June 04

[Ralph Jones]

Good Evening Friends,
How many board feet of lumber/timbers are contained in a pile of 124 pieces of 2" x 4" x 8'? Rough sawn.

Respectfully,

[journeyman Mick]

For the answer make a fist with your right hand and hold it in front of your nose with the opening formed by your thumb and first finger against your nose. Bring your fist forward rapidly about 150mm (6") and return to your nose rapidly, repeat this half a dozen times in quick succession. Puzzled? :confused: Fu[k nose (is) the answer.
In board feet or super foot (the same apparently) I haven't a clue nor the need nor desire to know, however it's close enough to 2.036 M3.

Mick

[Tonz]

One board foot is 144 cubic inches and is calculated on the nominal size of the board.

24 x 2 x 4 x 8 x 12 = 18432 cubic inches.

18432 / 144 = 128 board feet

[journeyman Mick]

So a board foot (or super foot) is an imaginary piece of board a foot wide and a foot long and an inch thick? I'm so glad we changed to metric

Mick the metric

[KevM]

Mick,
I still use super feet when caculating the cost of a slab as it is very easy to calculate in the head.

Take a slab of average width 600mm, thickness 50mm, length 2.4m
This converts to following approximate sizes 2ft, 2inch, 8ft
= 2x2x8
=approx 32 super feet

at $10 super foot = $320

in metric
=0.6 x 0.05 x 2.4
=0.072 m3

at $4280m3 = $308.00 (needed a calculator for this)

I know which measuring system I prefer if doing the calculations in the head.

regards

Kev

[Tonz]

I know which measuring system I prefer if doing the calculations in the head.

The metric system of course. It's $12 cheaper...

Besides, what if your slab is actually 620mm x 50mm x 2.2m and the cost was say $10.14 / foot? You would still need to use a calculator. It's not the imperial system that makes it easy to calculate all the time, it's just the units you've picked are easy to convert and $10 is a nice round decimal number....

[KevM]

Tonz,
You saw through my cunning deception with my simple example. I still stand by my statement that calculations are easier in super feet. Generally you round out charges to the closest 50 cents per super, which again does help with the mental calcs.

PS. Are you able to calculate the price on your example without a calculator.

regards

Kev

[ozwinner]

My timber never gets time to be board.

I munch it up too quickly.

Al

[Tonz]

Tonz,
PS. Are you able to calculate the price on your example without a calculator.

Not particularly accurately, no...

But if you generally work with 50mm slabs you could say 1m² is approx $200 and work from there... Round out the numbers a bit...0.6 x 2.5 = 1.5 x $200 = $300 approx...

You are right though, there are still 1 or 2 things that are easier to do in imperial units some of the time...

[Ralph Jones]

Good Morning Friends,
Sorry to be so long answering this quiz but my computer crashed after I install the post and I didn't get it back on line till around 1:00 PM my time.

Now for the quiz, the answer is 661.33 BF and here is how I got it.

124 x 2 x 4 x 8 = 7936 / 12 = 661.33 BF.

Thank you for your support.

Respectfully,