mickyd's Woodworking Projects

[mickyd]

2"X4"X8' at $2.98- - is equivalent to a little more than $1,710/MBF That sounds pretty high alright, but it is an imported hardwood. ........

........ There are books and periodic publications dealing with current grades and prices of lumber by species. "Random Lengths" is one weekly publication about Western softwoods dealing with such information. http://www.randomlengths.com/base.asp?s1=daily_woodwire&s2=market_news&s3=random_lengths
eg]guess[/U] that select grade would bring in about $1,000 or more.

I know this is more info than we need. I'm thinking hardwood data would be more variable.

Just when I thought that I was finally getting this B.F. thing under my belt, the calculation AND description above threw me.

• A 2" x 4" x 96" board would be [(2x4x96)/144]= 5.3 B.F.
• Dollars per B.F. would be $2.98 (Home Depot price for one 2 x 4 x 96) / 5.3 B.F. =r $0.56/B.F.
• 1000 B.F. of Home Depot 2x4 would be $0.56 x 1000 =r $560/MBF....how did you come up with $1,710/MBF?

And, my second point of confusion.....what species of imported hardwood are you referring too?

Are you paying me back for yesterday??

I noticed something at the link you indicated (interesting link by the way). The pricing tables show info in parentheses on some of the lumbers (i.e. Southern pine (Westside) or Southern (west/east) plywood). I just gotta ask.....what does that info in parentheses mean? Westside of the hill or west/east sides of a hill is all that came to mind!!!!

[JPG]

Just when I thought that I was finally getting this B.F. thing under my belt, the calculation AND description above threw me.

• A 2" x 4" x 96" board would be [(2x4x96)/144]= 5.3 B.F.
• Dollars per B.F. would be $2.98 (Home Depot price for one 2 x 4 x 96) / 5.3 B.F. =r $0.56/B.F.
• 1000 B.F. of Home Depot 2x4 would be $0.56 x 1000 =r $560/MBF....how did you come up with $1,710/MBF?

And, my second point of confusion.....what species of imported hardwood are you referring too?

Are you paying me back for yesterday??

I noticed something at the link you indicated (interesting link by the way). The pricing tables show info in parentheses on some of the lumbers (i.e. Southern pine (Westside) or Southern (west/east) plywood). I just gotta ask.....what does that info in parentheses mean? Westside of the hill or west/east sides of a hill is all that came to mind!!!!

Methinks he is thinking of yer lantern 'raw material'.

Me no unnerstand 1710 either!

Its the side of the tree!:D

[mickyd]

Methinks he is thinking of yer lantern 'raw material'.

Me no unnerstand 1710 either!

Its the side of the tree!:D

I taught dat 2 until he said...

2"X4"X8' at $2.98- - is equivalent to a little more than $1,710/MBF That sounds pretty high alright, but it is an imported hardwood.

$1,710/MBF ($1.71 / B.F) sounds high for what species of imported hardwood?

[charlese]

The moral here is never do math on the back of an envelope after midnight. AND When you screw up - do it royally!
When I set up a proportion of price of the 2X4 vs price/MBF, I Inversed half of the proportion.

Lesson learned? Hope so!!
Oh - Since It was late, and no species of the 2X4 was mentioned, I assumed it was 8/4 Philippine mahogany. Wondered why it was expressed as a 2X4X? rather than 8/4 but it was late and I failed to ask.

[mickyd]

The moral here is never do math on the back of an envelope after midnight. AND When you screw up - do it royally!
.....

That's OK Chuck. On your WORST day, your light years ahead of where I'll ever be.

[charlese]

You are very kind, mickyd! I've been feeling guilty all day about the horrible math in Post #344.

The second part of that post, about grade, is a pretty good quick summary, however it is the first part that keeps bugging me. I can assure everyone that the erroneous figures in that post were the result of messing up on 8th grade arithmetic.

I would like to re-explain the methods (avoiding the use of cubic inches) I used to come up with those figures. The methods were O.K. It was the arithmetic that was bad.

In the 1st place, I should have remembered from long ago, that a 2X4, 8' long has 5.3 bd.ft. Shouldn't have had to figure it. Rather than using cubic inches I thought a 1X4, 12 inches long is 1/3 of a bd.ft. and therefor 2 such pieces (a 2X4) are 2/3 bf. Then 2/3bf X 8' = 16/3bf or 5.3 bf. (I need practice dividing 16 by 3 for I came up with 5.1)

From there I set op a simple proportion that said if the price of a 2"X4"X8' costs $2.98 how much would a MBF cost. Here, not only was I using 5.1bf instead of 5.3, but also inverted the 1,000 bf and the unknown (x).

Had I done the math correctly, I would have come out with the same answer of $560/MBF.

New moral - you can do math when you are tired - but - just don't post it until you check it after a nap.

[lv2wdwrk]

I can assure everyone that the erroneous figures in that post were the result of messing up on 8th grade arithmetic.

Been out in the hot sun too much.

[swampgator]

Micky,

I followed you thread on the ER restoration and this thread. Great work on both and it's good to see you making worthwhile sawdust. Hope you enjoy your work for many years. Looking forward to your next project.

[mickyd]

You are very kind, mickyd! I've been feeling guilty all day about the horrible math in Post #344.
.......

.....New moral - you can do math when you are tired - but - just don't post it until you check it after a nap.

Errors are good, especially when your not the one responsible for making them. They usually help you, OR reinforce to others, some of life&#8217]no errors[/B] make no decisions!!!

Moral two of the story.....when ever possible, always anticipate what the correct answer should be.

[charlese]

[quote="mickyd"]...
Moral two of the story.....when ever possible, always anticipate what the correct answer should be.]

Agree 100% - I learned this lesson, one time, when taking a college course in slide rule. And yes - some lessons, once learned need to be reinforced occasionally:( .

Just for laughs - that slide rule class was in 1955 when we didn't have many calculators and they were very expensive. Slide rules only cost $20. Of course the marks on slide rules, based on log rhythms, have no decimals. This was a no credit course - good thing! The entire grade was based on the final exam. The correct answers on the exam had to be accurate to 3 significant figures. Out of the 35 attending, I was one of the two that passed final exam with a 'D'. All the rest showed an 'F' on their transcript, but lost no grade points. .