Volume - Lumber Converter
Convert between lumber and timber trade volume units — board foot, thousand board feet, cord, cord-foot, cunit, pallet, cross tie, switch tie, cubic meter, cubic foot, cubic inch, and thousand-square-foot panel units.
Results from this calculator are estimates provided for general informational purposes only, based on formulas, rates, and standards commonly accepted as of 2026. Figures may differ slightly from other calculators or professional sources due to rounding methods, differing assumptions, or regional regulations, and rules may change over time. Always consult a qualified professional — such as a financial advisor, healthcare provider, or other relevant specialist — before making decisions based on these results.
Result
1 bf = 0.083333333 ft³
1 Board Foot = 0.083333333 Cubic Feet
1 Cubic Foot = 12 Board Feet
1 bf in every supported unit
What is a Volume - Lumber Converter?
The lumber industry measures wood volume in specialized trade units, not plain cubic feet or cubic meters. The board foot — the volume of a plank 1 foot long, 1 foot wide, and 1 inch thick — is the fundamental US retail lumber unit: every stud, board, and beam sold at a hardware store or lumberyard is priced and measured per board foot. A cord (the traditional firewood-stacking unit, a stack 4 feet high, 4 feet wide, and 8 feet long) has been the standard US and Canadian firewood measure since the colonial era, named because the stacked wood was literally measured and bound with a cord (rope) for sale.
Beyond board feet and cords, the trade has developed several more specialized units: the cunit (100 cubic feet of solid wood) is a pulp and timber wholesale unit that avoids the board foot's assumption of a specific sawn-plank shape, making it useful for measuring raw logs or wood chips. Cross ties and switch ties are railroad-specific units — a cross tie is the standard volume of a single railroad tie, used by the rail industry to convert between raw timber volume and the number of ties it will yield, with the switch tie sized for the longer ties used at track switches and junctions. And the thousand-square-foot (TSF) units at various panel thicknesses are the standard measure for sheet goods like plywood and OSB, where volume is conventionally expressed as "how many thousand square feet of panel at this specific thickness." This converter ties every one of these trade-specific units back to the cubic meter so any two convert directly and consistently.
Conversion chart: Board Foot to Cubic Feet
Conversion table
| Board Foot (bf) | Cubic Foot (ft³) |
|---|---|
| 0.01 bf | 0.00083333333 ft³ |
| 0.1 bf | 0.0083333333 ft³ |
| 1 bf | 0.083333333 ft³ |
| 2 bf | 0.16666667 ft³ |
| 3 bf | 0.25 ft³ |
| 5 bf | 0.41666666 ft³ |
| 10 bf | 0.83333333 ft³ |
| 20 bf | 1.6666667 ft³ |
| 50 bf | 4.1666666 ft³ |
| 100 bf | 8.3333333 ft³ |
| 1000 bf | 83.333333 ft³ |
Supported Units
| Unit | Symbol | In m³ |
|---|---|---|
| Cubic Meter | m³ | 1 m³ |
| Cubic Foot | ft³ | 0.028316847 m³ |
| Cubic Inch | in³ | 1.63871E-05 m³ |
| Board Foot | bf | 0.0023597372 m³ |
| Thousand Board Feet | MBF | 2.3597372 m³ |
| Cord | cord | 3.6245564 m³ |
| Cord (80 ft³) | cord (80 ft³) | 2.2653477 m³ |
| Cord Foot | cord ft | 0.45306955 m³ |
| Cunit | cunit | 2.8316847 m³ |
| Pallet | pallet | 0.040115533 m³ |
| Cross Tie | tie | 0.094389489 m³ |
| Switch Tie | tie (switch) | 0.14866344 m³ |
| Thousand Sq Ft (1/8" panels) | TSF (1/8") | 0.29496715 m³ |
| Thousand Sq Ft (1/4" panels) | TSF (1/4") | 0.5899343 m³ |
| Thousand Sq Ft (3/8" panels) | TSF (3/8") | 0.88490146 m³ |
| Thousand Sq Ft (1/2" panels) | TSF (1/2") | 1.1798686 m³ |
| Thousand Sq Ft (3/4" panels) | TSF (3/4") | 1.7698029 m³ |
About These Parameters
- Value
- The amount of lumber or timber volume you want to convert, expressed in the "From" unit — a lumberyard's board-foot quantity, a firewood seller's cord count, or a sawmill's cubic-meter output.
- From Unit
- The unit your value is currently measured in — a hardware-store board-foot price, a firewood cord, a pulp mill's cunit, or a railroad's cross-tie count.
- To Unit
- The unit you want the result converted into. Use the swap button to flip From and To instantly, handy when translating between a retail unit like the board foot and a wholesale unit like the thousand board feet.
How Lumber Volume Conversion Works
The Formula
Every unit here is defined by a fixed multiplier relative to the cubic meter. To convert a value from one unit to another:
result = value × (factor of "From" unit ÷ factor of "To" unit)
For Board Foot → Cubic Foot: multiply by 0.083333333. For example, 1 bf × 0.083333333 = 0.083333333 ft³.
The Board Foot and the Cord: America's Retail Lumber Units
The board foot became the North American lumber trade's standard as sawmills industrialized in the 19th century, giving buyers and sellers a consistent way to price sawn boards of varying width and length on the same volume basis. The cord predates it by centuries, going back to the colonial-era firewood trade — a stack 4 feet high, 4 feet wide, and 8 feet long (128 cubic feet including the air gaps between logs), literally measured out and bound with a cord of rope before sale, which is where the name comes from. Both units remain the everyday retail measures of the US and Canadian lumber and firewood trade today.
Wholesale and Industry-Specific Units
Once volumes move beyond individual retail purchases, the trade shifts to bulk and industry-specific units: the thousand board feet (MBF) scales the board foot up for sawmill production and wholesale shipment quotes, while the cunit (100 cubic feet of solid wood) gives the pulp and timber industry a shape-neutral wholesale unit for raw logs and wood chips that don't naturally divide into board-foot-shaped planks. Railroads use their own units entirely — the cross tie and the larger switch tie — to convert raw timber volume directly into the number of finished ties a given quantity will yield. Sheet-goods manufacturers, meanwhile, price plywood and OSB by the thousand square feet at a specific panel thickness, since surface area at a known thickness is how that segment of the industry has always measured volume.
Example
1 bf equals 0.083333333 ft³. For scale, a single 2×4 stud 8 feet long is a little over 5 board feet, a full cord of firewood is 128 cubic feet stacked (about 80 cubic feet of solid wood once air gaps are excluded), and a standard cunit represents 100 cubic feet of solid timber — roughly the volume of several full-grown log sections.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a board foot exactly?
A board foot is the volume of a plank 1 foot long, 1 foot wide, and 1 inch thick — 144 cubic inches. It's the standard unit US lumberyards use to price sawn boards and dimensional lumber, regardless of the actual length or width the board is cut to, since the volume (and therefore the board-foot count) is what determines the price.
Why is a cord 128 cubic feet but the "solid" cord only about 80?
A full stacked cord occupies 128 cubic feet (4 × 4 × 8 feet), but that figure includes the air gaps that naturally form between irregularly-shaped, rounded logs. Foresters estimate that only about 80 cubic feet of that stack is actually solid wood — the "cord (80 ft³)" unit on this page represents that estimated solid-wood content rather than the total space the stack occupies.
What's the difference between a cross tie and a switch tie?
Both are railroad timber-volume units representing one finished tie's worth of wood, but a switch tie is sized for the longer ties used at track switches and junctions, so it represents noticeably more volume than a standard cross tie used along straight track.
Why does the TSF (thousand square feet) unit change depending on panel thickness?
TSF measures a fixed surface area (1,000 square feet) of sheet material like plywood or OSB, but the actual volume of wood in that area obviously depends on how thick the panel is — a 3/4-inch panel contains six times as much wood as a 1/8-inch panel covering the same 1,000 square feet, which is why this page lists a separate TSF unit for each common panel thickness.