Board Feet -Pié x pié x pulgada

http://woodzone.com/tips/board_feet/board_feet.htm Calculating Board Feet

BOARD FEET: "Board Feet" is a measurement of lumber volume. A board foot is equal to 144 cubic inches of wood. Actually it's easy to calculate using the following formula:

(Thickness x Width x Length) / 144 = Board Feet

Note: Lumber is specified by its rough size. This is why a 1"x 4" board is actually 3/4" thick and a 2"x 4" board is actually 1-1/2" thick.

When you are figuring up board feet, keep in mind a waste factor. If you purchase good clear material add about 15% for waste, if you elect to use lower grade material you will have to allow for defects and more wasted material -add about 30%. Take a few boards and run the measurements and you will see how easy this works.

Board-Foot Measure
Unit of...	Volume
Symbol:	FBM
Unit conversions
1 FBM in...	is equal to...
International_System_of_Units	≈0.00235973722 meters³

The board-foot is a specialized unit of measure for the volume of lumber in the United States and Canada. It is the volume of a one-foot length of a board one foot wide and one inch thick.
Board-foot can be abbreviated FBM (for "foot, board measure"), BDFT, or BF. Thousand board-feet can be abbreviated as MFBM, MBFT, or MBF. Similarly, million board-feet can be abbreviated as MMFBM, MMBFT, or MMBF.

FBM multiples
fbm=board-foot
mfbm=thousand board-feet
mmfbm=million board-feet

In Australia and New Zealand the term super foot or superficial foot was used to mean the same.^[1][2][3]
One board-foot equals:

• 1 ft × 1 ft × 1 in
• 12 in × 12 in × 1 in
• 30.48 cm x 30.48 cm x 2.54 cm
• 144 in³
• 1⁄12 ft³
• 2360 cm³
• 2.360 liters
• 0.002360 cubic meters or steres
• 1/1980 Petrograd Standard of board

Board foot is the unit of measure for rough lumber (before drying and planing with no adjustments) or planed/surfaced lumber. An example of planed lumber is softwood 2x4 lumber one would buy at a large lumber retailer. The 2x4 is actually only 1¹⁄₂ in × 3¹⁄₂ in (38 mm × 89 mm) but the dimensions for the lumber when purchased wholesale could still be represented as full 2x4 lumber, although the "standard" can vary between vendors. This means that nominal lumber includes air space around the physical board when calculating board feet in some situations, while the true measurement of "board feet" should be limited to the actual dimensions of the board.
For planed lumber, board-feet refer to the nominal thickness and width of lumber, calculated in principle on its size before drying and planing. Actual length is used.
See dimensional lumber for a full discussion of the relationship of actual and nominal dimensions. Briefly, for softwoods, to convert nominal to actual, subtract ¼ inch for dimensions under 2 inches (51 mm); subtract ½ inch for dimensions under 8 inches (203 mm); and subtract ¾ inch for larger measurements. The system is more complicated for hardwoods.
An Essex table is a tabulation of the number of board feet in lumber of varying dimensions.^[4]

See also