: But a nominal 6 inch width is 5 1/2 inches, so if you rip that 12 inch board
: in half, allowing for 1/8th inch kerf, your home-ripped boards are going
: to each be 1/16th wider than boards you would buy at the store.

: So when you get common softwood lumber a board foot of 1 x 12 would actually
: measure 1 foot long by 11.25 wide by .75 thick. If you were to by nominal
: 1x2's, the loss would be greater. these only measure 1 1/2 inches wide.
: Six of these, side by side would only measure 9 inches, but that's what
: you woudl get in a board foot of 1x2s--a piece .75 thick, 12 inches long,
: and equivalent to 9 inches wide.

: Should you decide you need 1x2s and figure on ripping your own from a 1x12,
: with 5 rip cuts taking out 5/8ths inch of material, you'll be splitting
: the remaining 10 5/8-wide board into 6 pieces which are a bit over 1 3/4
: inches wide. But why do that when with 6 rip cuts, removing 3/4 inch of
: stock in those 1/8th inch kerfs, you can actually rip the remaining 10.5
: of good wood into seven, not six 1x2s.

: Yes this is confusing--and the lumberyards are usually the winners. There are
: some exceptions. I've run into some places where the employees weren't
: sure how the management set the prices, or the management had their own
: rules on figuring boardfeet. They would look at the listed price per board
: foot, and if the wood measured 3/4 inch thick they would charge you 75
: percent of the listed rate. Sometimes they would figure the actual width
: of a board, as well.

: The moral here is to ask how rates are calculated at that particular
: lumberyard before buying, or comparing their price with the competition.

: Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware)

: In April 2003 The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a
: study on this (http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/pubs/22353) and found that
: after observing data from 14 different mills, starting in 1996: "The
: width of the dry, 4/4 thickness, red oak lumber sample was significantly
: influenced by lumber grade, lumber length, and mill. The dominant lumber
: widthclass was 5.00 to 6.75 inches (47 % of all boards). Boards in the FAS
: and FAS-1F grades were wider than those in the No. 1, No. 2A, and No. 3A
: Common grades, and these were wider than the Selects grade boards. There
: was significant variability in lumber size attributes between mills,
: supporting the contention that each mill must collect its own data on
: lumber size and quality characteristics for optimal decision making"

: The entire report is available here:
: http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/other_publishers/OCR/ne_2003_wiedenbeck002.pdf

: Hope this helps

: PGJ

Well....depends on the yard. The good ones, also unfortionately usually the more expensive ones, tend to actually measure the wood and use that in the board/ft. calculations. Helps to carry your own tape measure and point it out to them, though this only works if they post their prices per board ft.

The smaller yards that are a little less pricy tend to price per running foot and then you're correct, they are scamming on the sizes.

Bill H.