A board foot is the standard unit for measuring and pricing lumber: 144 cubic inches, equivalent to a board one inch thick, twelve inches wide, and twelve inches long. Hardwood is sold by the board foot, so a woodworker's material cost starts with translating a project's parts into board feet and multiplying by the per-board-foot price.
The catch for costing is waste. Rough lumber must be jointed, planed, and ripped to size, and real projects lose a substantial share of the board feet purchased to offcuts, defects, and grain selection. Costing only the board feet that end up in the finished piece understates material cost; the board feet you had to buy is the honest figure.
Treated as an inventory unit, board feet let a woodshop track lumber consumption against production the same way a baker tracks flour — purchased in one measure, consumed in another, reconciled through unit conversion.
Related terms
Unit Conversion
The automatic conversion between different units of measure (e.g., pounds to ounces, cups to milliliters). Allows purchasing in bulk units and using smaller units in recipes.
Ingredient
A raw material or component purchased from vendors and used in recipes to produce finished goods. Examples: flour, beads, essential oils, fabric.
COGS (Cost of Goods Sold)
The total cost of materials, labor, and overhead directly tied to producing the goods you sell. Tracked automatically through purchases, recipes, and production runs.
Yield
The amount of usable finished product a recipe or production run actually produces, after accounting for trim, waste, and loss.