About Free Board Foot

Free Board Foot is a free, tool-first lumber measurement platform built for woodworkers, contractors, hardwood buyers, timber cruisers, and forestry professionals. Every calculator on the site is open access — no registration, no account required, no paywalls. The goal is to give anyone working with lumber a reliable, transparent alternative to spreadsheets and pocket-worn reference tables.

What You Can Calculate

The site covers the full range of lumber measurement tasks that come up in woodworking shops, job sites, lumber yards, and timberland management:

• Board Foot Calculator — single board or batched quantity, nominal or actual dimensions, NHLA hardwood tally mode, pricing ($/BF, $/MBF, or per piece), waste allowance, and metric input.
• Lumber Project Estimator — multi-board cut list with per-row pricing, total board feet, linear feet, waste-adjusted order quantity, and PDF report download.
• Board Foot Chart — printable reference table for 16 common nominal sizes across 9 standard lengths.
• Board Feet ↔ Linear Feet Converter — bidirectional conversion by board width, with a reference table and worked examples.
• Board Feet ↔ Square Feet Converter — bidirectional conversion by thickness, with a reference table covering 7 common thicknesses.
• Lumber Volume Conversions — convert board feet to cubic feet, cubic meters, and MBF with tables and worked import/export examples.
• Linear Board Foot Calculator — total linear feet and board feet from dimensions and quantity, with optional pricing.
• Lumber Weight Calculator — weight in lbs, US tons, and kg by species and moisture condition (dry or green), sourced from USDA FPL Wood Handbook density data.
• Log Scale Calculator — Doyle, Scribner Decimal C, and International ¼" log rule results side-by-side from diameter inside bark and log length.
• Standing Timber Calculator — board feet per tree and stand cruise totals from DBH and merchantable height, across all three major log rules.

Our Mission

To provide the most accurate, transparent, and easy-to-use board foot calculators on the web — for free, without registration or lead-generation walls. Lumber measurement is fundamental to every wood-related trade and hobby. These tools should be available to anyone, from a first-time DIYer calculating how much 2×4 to buy through to a consulting forester running a timber cruise.

Accuracy Standards

Every calculator on this site is tested against industry-standard reference values before publication:

• Board foot geometry: Tested against known values (4/4 × 6" × 8' = 4.00 BF; 2×4×8' nominal = 5.33 BF; etc.)
• NHLA tally: Thickness rounding (up to nearest ¼") and length rounding (down to whole foot) verified against published NHLA grading conventions.
• Log rules: Doyle formula is exact as published. Scribner Decimal C and International ¼-inch implementations are verified against USDA Forest Service Scaling Handbook EM 7133-4 and Clark (1906) tabular values at ±1 BF tolerance.
• Lumber weight: Species density values sourced from USDA Forest Products Laboratory Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021), Chapter 5.
• Unit conversions: 1 BF = 144 in³ = 1/12 ft³ = 0.002359737 m³ (derived from exact SI definitions).

All calculators display the formulas and assumptions they use. If you find a discrepancy, please contact us with the inputs and expected result.

Data Sources

• NHLA Rules for the Measurement and Inspection of Hardwood and Cypress — the industry standard for hardwood lumber grading and tally.
• USDA Forest Service Scaling Handbook, EM 7133-4 — the authoritative reference for Scribner Decimal C log scaling.
• Grosenbaugh, L.R. (1952). Shortcuts for cruisers and scalers. USDA Forest Service Occasional Paper 126 — basis for International ¼-inch polynomial implementations.
• American Wood Council / Southern Pine Inspection Bureau — nominal and actual lumber dimension standards used for framing lumber.
• USDA Forest Products Laboratory Wood Handbook (FPL-GTR-282, 2021) — species density data used in the lumber weight calculator.

Disclaimer

Calculator results are estimates. Actual lumber volumes, log yields, and costs depend on measurement conventions, species, grade, moisture content, and supplier-specific practices. Log scaling results are gross scale with no defect deductions applied. Always confirm measurements and pricing with your supplier, mill, or a licensed log scaler before any financial transaction.

Frequently Asked Questions

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