• 4/4 Teak -- 5" - 8" Wide X 5' - 8' Long: $30 Per Board Foot
• 8/4 Teak -- 5" - 8" Wide X 5' - 8' Long: $33 Per Board Foot
• Longer & Wider Dimensions Available At Higher Cost

Rough-sawn boards normally require straightening, as well as planing or thickness sanding before the surfaces are entirely smooth. Additionally, the ends of rough-sawn boards may contain end checks up to a length equal to the width of any given board. Typically, however, they're rarely that large.

Another factor to consider when buying rough-sawn lumber is that you'll nearly always end up with more board feet than you specify -- typically by 5% to 10% -- due to varying full-board dimensions. And if you have a specific set of required "net" dimensions for your finished milled lumber, a fair amount of the rough-sawn lumber you buy may end up as waste -- at least in terms of the amount of wood you need for a particular project.

All that said, however, if you have the necessary shop skills and tools -- and if you plan your purchase carefully -- going with rough-sawn lumber can potentially deliver significant savings compared to buying milled dimensional boards.

How To Calculate Rough-Sawn "Board Feet"

You can get a pretty fair idea of how many board feet you need by using simple arithmetic:

• Multiply a rough-sawn board's width in inches x its length in inches.
• Then multiply the result by the board's thickness in inches (4/4 lumber = 1" thick, 6/4 = 1.5" thick, 8/4 = 2" thick etc).
• Divide the result by 144, and that tells you how many "board feet" a particular board contains.

So, for example, if you need a 2" (8/4) thick rough-sawn board that measures 10" wide by 96" long, the calculation would be 10 x 96 x 2 / 144 = 13.33 board feet.