Board Feet to Milliliters (bf to mL)

1 board foot equals 2,359.737216 milliliters exactly.

1 board foot = 2,359.737216 milliliters

How to convert board feet to milliliters

To convert board feet to milliliters, multiply the number of board feet by 2,359.737216. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply milliliters by 0.0004237760007 (rounded).

milliliters = board feet × 2,359.737216

Example: 10 board feet = 23,597.37216 milliliters.

Pints, quarts, gallons and fluid ounces differ between the US and the UK. Units are labeled 'US' or 'imperial' to avoid confusion.

About these units

Board Foot (bf)

US customaryTraditional unit (still used in some regions)

144 cubic inches, a board 1 ft × 1 ft × 1 in. The standard unit for lumber in North America.

Lumber buyers in North America price timber by the board foot, the volume of a board 1 foot long, 1 foot wide and 1 inch thick. That is 144 cubic inches, one twelfth of a cubic foot, or about 2.36 liters. Thousands of board feet are written MBF, a shorthand common in sawmill and timber sale contracts.

A quirk makes the unit slightly slippery. Rough lumber is measured at its full sawn size, but planed softwood such as a retail two-by-four is counted by its nominal dimensions even though the finished board is smaller, so the calculated footage overstates the wood actually present. Hardwoods are measured at actual size and avoid this gap.

Foresters also estimate how many board feet a log will yield using log rules such as the Doyle rule, which allow for taper, saw kerf and waste. In Australia and New Zealand the same quantity was called the super foot or superficial foot until the 1970s. Related timber units include the cord, the Hoppus foot and the stere.

1 board foot = 2.359737216 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Board foot; Wikipedia: Stere

Milliliter (mL)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One thousandth of a liter, or exactly 1 cubic centimeter. Used for medicine, cooking and small containers.

Milliliters inherit everything from the liter, since the prefix simply means one thousandth. Because the liter is a cubic decimeter, a milliliter works out to exactly one cubic centimeter, a coincidence the metric system built in on purpose so that volume, length and mass interlock. One milliliter of water has a mass of about one gram, so a dosing syringe, a kitchen scale and a measuring jug can all be checked against one another.

Today milliliters dominate wherever small amounts must be measured precisely: medicine, flavorings, perfume, shampoo and the fine print on drink labels. Spelling is a mild regional split, with uppercase mL preferred in the United States, Canada and Australia and lowercase ml common in the UK and Europe. For scale, a US teaspoon is just under 5 mL, a US tablespoon is about 14.8 mL, and the US nutrition-label cup is exactly 240 mL, so one such cup is 240 of these tiny units.

1 milliliter = 0.001 liters (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Litre; NIST SP 811, Appendix B.8: conversion factors for volume; 21 CFR 101.9: nutrition labeling household measures

Related conversions

See all volume units.