“Welcome to the Cambium Café! May I take your order?”
“Yes, I’d like 2.3125 pounds of sustenance.”
“Oooo. Excellent choice sir. And how would you like that sustenance?”
“Let’s see. I’d like 8 ounces of grilled protein, 17 ounces of starch, fried. And 12 ounces of steamed vegetable matter.”
“You got it.”
That’s not how we order food. And it’s not how I buy wood.
I can honestly say, with my hand on my duodenum, that I have never walked into a lumberyard and said: “I would like 19.17 board feet of cherry. Ope, I almost forgot to allow for 20 percent waste. So I’ll actually need 23.004 board feet.”
When I make chairs or one-off pieces, I pick every stick of wood. I don’t think about board feet until the clerk rings up my order (and I Kegel just a little to ensure I don’t crap myself).
So when people ask: “How many board feet do I need to build a stick chair?” I don’t have a good answer. You can order 500 board feet of lumber and manage to get only one chair out of that pile of wood because the grain isn’t straight enough.
Or you can select two appropriate boards of oak (19.17 board feet for about $95.85) and get the same chair.
The only difference between the two scenarios is the grain in the boards.
So here’s a slightly better answer: To build a typical comb-back chair, I need:
1. One 8/4 board that is 9" wide and 10' long. And the grain must be dead-straight through about 6' of the length of the board.
2. One 5/4 board that is 10" wide and 4' long. Weird grain is fine.
Below is a more detailed explanation, plus three very vertical graphics for paying subscribers.
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