Hardwood Lumber Grades Explained: FAS, Selects, No. 1 Common and the Rest
Lumber math · Buying hardwood · Updated 2026-09-13
Grade is the line on a hardwood quote that most people skip past, and it is the line that sets the rate you pay. The same species, from the same yard, on the same day, carries one rate as FAS and a lower one as No. 1 Common. The board that looks better on the rack is not always the board that gives you more finished parts, and that gap between looks and yield is the whole subject.
US hardwood is sold under rules published by the National Hardwood Lumber Association, usually shortened to NHLA. The rules answer one narrow question about every board: how much clear, usable cutting can be taken out of it? This guide walks the ladder from FAS down to No. 3B Common, says what each grade is honestly good for, and shows why the grade you choose moves your waste factor and your cost per finished part far more than the posted rate does.
What a hardwood grade actually measures
A grade is a yield estimate, not a beauty score. An inspector looks at a rough board and works out how much of its face can be lifted out as clear cuttings - rectangles of defect-free wood large enough to be worth something. Two things set the grade: the share of the board's face those cuttings add up to, and the smallest cutting the grade will count. Top grades demand a high share in a few large pieces. Lower grades accept a smaller share taken in many smaller pieces. That is why a board covered in scattered pin knots can still grade respectably, while a wide, apparently sound board with one bad check running its length can fall two grades.
Everything you might call character sits outside the grade for most species. Figure, curl, color, mineral streak, heartwood versus sapwood, the way a board photographs - none of it raises or lowers the grade on its own. A wildly figured walnut board and a plain one with identical defect layout grade the same, even though one is worth far more to a furniture maker and the other is not. That is also why you cannot order appearance by grade alone. You order yield by grade, then you pick boards by eye at the rack, or you pay the yard to pull for color and figure.
How a board gets its grade
- Surface measure is the board's face area in square feet, taken from its rough width and length. Most rules in the book scale off surface measure, including how many separate cuttings a board of that size is allowed to take. Surface measure is area, not volume, so it is not the same thing as board feet unless the board happens to be 1 in thick - see how to calculate board feet for that distinction.
- Clear face cuttings are the defect-free rectangles an inspector can take out of the graded face. Each grade sets both a minimum cutting size and a minimum share of the face those cuttings have to reach.
- Fewer and bigger, or more and smaller. Upper grades want a high yield concentrated in large cuttings. Lower grades allow more cuttings of smaller size, which is exactly how a knotty board still earns a working grade.
- The rough board is what is graded, before surfacing and before you touch it. It is also billed on its rough thickness, which is a separate and expensive surprise covered in what 4/4 lumber means.
- Species rules modify the general rules. Walnut, cherry, oak and several others have their own paragraphs, and some yards sell to their own house standards on top of NHLA. The board sizes and yield fractions quoted on this page are the general-rule figures, rounded for reading, and species and special rules move them. The published NHLA rules book is the authority in any dispute, not a chart, and not this page.
The ladder, FAS down to No. 3B Common
- FAS (Firsts and Seconds) is the top grade. Boards start at about 6 in wide and 8 ft long, both faces have to make the grade, and the general rules ask for roughly ten twelfths of the face, about 83 percent, as clear cutting taken in large pieces. Buy it when parts are long or wide and every surface shows: table tops, wide panels, long door stiles and rails, run mouldings, anything where a short cutting is no use to you.
- FAS One Face (F1F) is FAS on the better face with the back face only required to reach No. 1 Common. Board sizes match FAS. It is the honest choice for any part with a show side and a hidden side, which is most of a case piece: table tops with an underside nobody sees, case sides, wide drawer fronts. Mark the show face as soon as the board is off the truck.
- Selects works the same way as F1F - better face at FAS quality, back face allowed to be No. 1 Common - but the boards are smaller, starting at 4 in wide and 6 ft long. F1F and Selects are frequently bundled and sold together, especially in northern species. Use it for face frames, narrow rails, trim and drawer fronts, where you never needed a wide board in the first place.
- No. 1 Common is the cabinet grade, and the most useful grade on the list for most shops. Boards start at about 3 in wide and 4 ft long, and the general rules ask for roughly eight twelfths of the face, two thirds, taken in cuttings that may be considerably shorter than FAS requires. That shorter cutting length is the whole point: it is the length real furniture parts actually are.
- No. 2A Common keeps the same minimum board size and drops the clear-cutting requirement to roughly six twelfths, half the face, in cuttings smaller again. It is the grade for painted work, cabinet interiors, drawer sides, shelving, strip flooring and small parts. If your cut list is genuinely short, it can beat No. 1 Common on cost per finished part. If it is not, it will bury you in offcuts.
- No. 3A Common asks for only about four twelfths, a third of the face, as clear cutting. The boards are heavily defected and the usable pieces are small. It belongs in pallets, crating, blocking, shop jigs, sacrificial fixtures and small craft stock. It is the cheapest grade per board foot and often the most expensive per finished part.
- No. 3B Common asks only about three twelfths, a quarter of the face, and its cuttings need only be sound rather than clear. Sound knots, stain and other visual defects are allowed to stay in the cutting. It is industrial and utility material. Buy it only when appearance genuinely does not matter and strength requirements are modest.
| Grade | Roughly what it is used for | Practical consequence for yield and waste |
|---|---|---|
| FAS | Long and wide parts where every face shows: table tops, wide panels, long stiles and rails, run mouldings | Highest clear yield in the largest pieces, so the least cutting around defects and the least sorting time. You pay for width and length whether your parts need them or not. |
| FAS One Face (F1F) | Show face plus hidden face: case sides, wide drawer fronts, tops with an unseen underside | Front face performs like FAS, back face may carry defects. Decide which face shows before the first cut, or you will lose a board to a flip. |
| Selects | One-face work from narrower stock: face frames, narrow rails, trim, drawer fronts | Show-face yield close to F1F but from smaller boards, so more glue joints, more edge jointing and more setup time per finished square foot. |
| No. 1 Common | The furniture and cabinet grade: rails, stiles, legs, drawer parts, most parts a few feet long or shorter | Two thirds of the face still cuts clear, but in shorter and narrower pieces. Expect real cutting around defects and a bigger offcut pile, offset by a lower rate. |
| No. 2A Common | Painted work, cabinet interiors, drawer sides, shelving, flooring, small parts | About half the face yields clear cutting in small pieces. Strong value for short parts, poor value the moment a part gets long. |
| No. 3A Common | Pallets, crating, blocking, shop jigs, sacrificial parts, small craft stock | Low clear yield and heavy defect, so heavy ripping and cross-cutting. Lowest rate per board foot, frequently the highest cost per usable part. |
| No. 3B Common | Industrial and utility work where cuttings need only be sound, not clear | Cuttings may keep sound knots and stain. Only worth buying when appearance is irrelevant to the job. |
Why No. 1 Common is often the right buy
Look at your cut list before you look at the grade list. Count how many parts are longer than about four feet and wider than about six inches. In most furniture and almost all cabinetwork, that count is small: a case has a few long sides and a top, and then dozens of rails, stiles, drawer parts, legs, cleats and small panels that are a couple of feet long at most. FAS is priced for the long, wide parts. If you buy FAS and then cut it into 18 in rails, you have paid a premium for clear length and then cross-cut that length away. The yard captured the value of those long clear runs, and you turned them into offcuts. No. 1 Common is priced lower precisely because its clear cuttings are shorter, which is the same shape your parts already are. Buy the grade whose cuttings match your parts, and you stop paying for yield you were always going to saw off.
Compare two grades before you commit. The waste figures in Board Foot Calculator₊ are free: net board feet, waste percent, gross board feet and the cost of each, all four labelled and on screen together, so you can run the same cut list at two grades and see what each one really costs. The price book, which stores a rate per species, per supplier and per thickness, comes with the one-time Shop Unlock, a purchase and not a subscription. Coming soon on iPhone. Learn more about Board Foot Calculator₊.
Grade, waste factor and rate are one decision
Grade does not just change what you pay per board foot, it changes how many board feet you have to buy. Your waste factor is the allowance you add on top of the net board feet your finished parts need, and gross equals net multiplied by one plus the waste percent divided by 100. A clean FAS order for simple parts might sit near the low end of the range woodworkers commonly use, roughly 15 to 20 percent. Drop to No. 1 Common and you are cutting around more defect, so a higher allowance is normal, and No. 2A or knotty, figured or rough stock pushes it to 30 percent or more. Those are rules of thumb from the bench, not a standard. The point is that a lower grade with a higher waste factor is not automatically cheaper, and a higher grade with a low waste factor is not automatically dearer. Run both through the same arithmetic before you decide, the way comparing two quotes per board foot works: net board feet, then the waste factor, then gross, then the rate, then the total. Comparing grades on the rate alone is how a cheap order turns expensive at the chop saw.
Softwood is graded on a different system
None of this ladder applies to construction lumber. NHLA grading is a hardwood system, built around how much clear cutting comes out of a board that is going to be cut up. Softwood is graded under a separate structural framework run by regional rules-writing agencies, and its grades - Select Structural, No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, Stud, Construction, and the appearance grades for boards - are mostly about strength-reducing characteristics and the size, type and placement of knots in a piece that will be used whole. Softwood also sells by nominal size rather than measured size: a 2x4 really measures 1-1/2 by 3-1/2 in, and the trade does its board-foot math on the nominal 2 by 4. Hardwood is the opposite, sold by actual rough thickness in quarters. If you are pricing a job that mixes framing lumber and hardwood, keep the two conventions separate in your head and in your notes, and tap a total in Board Foot Calculator to open the working line by line with the thickness you actually entered, so you can see which convention a figure was built from.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between FAS and No. 1 Common?
FAS yields more clear wood in bigger pieces, and No. 1 Common yields less clear wood in shorter pieces. FAS boards start at about 6 in wide and 8 ft long and the general rules ask for roughly ten twelfths of the face as clear cutting, while No. 1 Common starts at about 3 in wide and 4 ft long and asks for roughly eight twelfths in shorter cuttings. Neither grade says anything about color or figure. For parts shorter than about four feet, No. 1 Common usually gives you the same finished parts for less.
What does FAS stand for in lumber?
FAS stands for Firsts and Seconds, the top two NHLA hardwood grades combined into one selling grade. It is the highest grade in common trade use and requires both faces of the board to meet the standard. FAS One Face, written F1F, is a separate grade where only the better face has to reach FAS quality.
Is No. 1 Common good enough for furniture?
Yes, for most of a piece of furniture it is the sensible grade. No. 1 Common is often called the cabinet grade because its required clear cuttings are close to the length of real furniture parts: rails, stiles, legs, drawer parts and small panels. Buy FAS or F1F only for the genuinely long or wide parts, such as a one-piece top or a tall case side, and buy No. 1 Common for the rest.
Which face is hardwood graded on?
The poorer face, for FAS, No. 1 Common, No. 2A Common and the No. 3 grades. That means the grade is a promise about the worse side of the board, so the better side is at least that good. FAS One Face and Selects are the exceptions, where the better face carries the grade and the back face only has to reach No. 1 Common.
Does a higher lumber grade mean prettier wood?
No. Grade measures how much clear, usable cutting comes out of a board, not how attractive it is. Figure, curl, color, mineral and sapwood are outside the grade for most species, so a highly figured board and a plain one with the same defect layout carry the same grade. If you need matched color or figure, select boards by eye at the rack or ask the yard to pull for it.
Are softwood boards graded the same way as hardwood?
No, softwood uses an entirely separate system. Construction lumber is graded by regional rules-writing agencies on strength-reducing characteristics and knot size and placement, under names like Select Structural, No. 1, No. 2 and Stud. Softwood is also sold by nominal size, so a 2x4 measures 1-1/2 by 3-1/2 in, while hardwood is sold by its actual rough thickness.
How does lumber grade change how much I should buy?
A lower grade needs a bigger waste allowance, because you cut around more defect to get the same parts. Gross board feet equals net board feet multiplied by one plus the waste percent divided by 100, so a grade that pushes your allowance from roughly 15 to 20 percent up to 30 percent or more adds real volume to the order. Work out the gross for each grade you are considering before you compare rates, since the cheaper grade is sometimes the larger order.