Log Weight Calculator

This calculator works out what a log weighs from the diameter at each end, the length and the weight of a cubic foot of the wood. The headline volume is the cone frustum, the exact solid those two diameters describe, and the Smalian and Huber scaling rules are shown beside it so you can see how far apart the three answers sit on a tapered log. A second tab counts how many logs of that size fit a trailer or loader limit, and a third moves a weight you already have from one moisture content to another. There is no species table here on purpose, because published densities for one species disagree about moisture; the density is yours to supply.

Calculator Type
Measure In
Diameters in inches, length in feet, density in pounds per cubic foot. The answer comes back in pounds.
Measured across the cut face, inside the bark. Average two readings at right angles if the end is oval.
Put the same number in both boxes if you only have one diameter, or if the log hardly tapers.
Weight of a cubic foot of the wood at the moisture it is carrying now. Green hardwoods generally fall between about 40 and 65 lb per cubic foot and green softwoods between about 30 and 55, and the same wood air-dried to 15 or 20 per cent moisture is a good deal lighter. In kilograms per cubic metre those bands are roughly 640 to 1,040 and 480 to 880. Published figures for one species disagree between sources because they assume different moisture, so take the number from a wood handbook for the species and condition you actually have.
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Measure In
Diameters in inches, length in feet, density in pounds per cubic foot. The answer comes back in pounds.
Measured across the cut face, inside the bark. Average two readings at right angles if the end is oval.
Put the same number in both boxes if you only have one diameter, or if the log hardly tapers.
Weight of a cubic foot of the wood at the moisture it is carrying now. Green hardwoods generally fall between about 40 and 65 lb per cubic foot and green softwoods between about 30 and 55, and the same wood air-dried to 15 or 20 per cent moisture is a good deal lighter. In kilograms per cubic metre those bands are roughly 640 to 1,040 and 480 to 880. Published figures for one species disagree between sources because they assume different moisture, so take the number from a wood handbook for the species and condition you actually have.
What the trailer, truck bed, loader or crane may carry, in pounds. Use the rated figure, not the one on the sticker of the thing doing the lifting.
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Weight In
On the oven-dry basis a wood meter reads: the water as a percentage of the dry wood, which is why green wood can read well over 100. Freshly felled hardwood is often 60 to 100 and freshly felled softwood sapwood can pass 150.
Air-dried wood settles somewhere near 12 to 20 per cent depending on the climate. Zero is oven dry, which nothing outside a laboratory reaches.
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