Wood Technology & Processes

Converting Board Feet to Lineal Feet

There are times when you need to convert board foot measurements to lineal foot measurements. This happens mainly when suppliers price mixed-length lots of lumber by the board foot. Materials lists may be set up with lineal-foot measurements. You need to convert the measurements in order to find out exactly how much usable material you need.

In order to convert from board feet to lineal feet, you must know the width and thickness of the stock.

The conversion formula looks like this:

(12 ÷ (W x T)) × bf = lf

Practice Exercise

1.		How many lineal feet of 1 × 4 poplar boards are in a truckload of 5,000 bf?
			A)	8,000 lf
			B)	10,000 lf
			C)	12,500 lf
			D)	15,000 lf
2.		A supplier is selling 7,000 bf of 2 × 2 lumber. How many lineal feet does this contain?
			A)	21, 000 lf
			B)	28,000 lf
			C)	26,500 lf
			D)	13,000 lf
3.		A woodworking shop owner offers to sell 2,000 bf of hardwood lumber in various dimensions. How much lineal footage does this represent?
			A)	7,500 lf
			B)	impossible to determine
			C)	8,600 lf
			D)	6,000 lf
4.		How many lineal feet of 6 × 6 post stock are in a load of 8,000 bf? Round up to the nearest whole number.
			A)	3,251 lf
			B)	16,000 lf
			C)	8,000 lf
			D)	2,667 lf
5.		If 20 bf of 1 × 3 boards were laid end to end, how long would they reach?
			A)	20 lf
			B)	40 lf
			C)	60 lf
			D)	80 lf