Official Luthiers Forum!

HI,

I realize splitting the brace is way to go to minimize the runout. However what I don't understand is that when we sand these braces to radius, doesn't that create runout anyways?
So why split over cut? Is it just matter less runout versus more?

THanks, David

It is a matter of control, and choosing the best general orientation. Now given the grain will not ever be able to follow all your carves in your braces, but wouldn't it make sense to have most of it closer or at least a "known". Say you have no idea how the wood is split, and it just so happens it would split at about 45 degrees to the face. Now the majority of that brace is going to be significnatly weaker in service. I suppose you also figured that at the locations you carve you are trying to reduce strength a bit, so these factors are kinda working hand in hand. The gentle radius is not going to cause what would be significant runnout, and the areas were you are trying to reduce strength anyway with carves are what they are.

We work with wood and one bit of wood does not grow exactly the same as the next piece. We need to use common sense to make the best of each piece. Splitting wood to try to keep the grain as straight as is resonable is not a big deal to do(seems sensable). If you are buying pre-cut slivers of wood for bracing stock, then they should already be split and cut referencing that split face, no further splitting is required just cut to the referenced face.

Rich

if your brace is dead nuts on the quarter , putting a radius should not cause run out ! I think if there IS run out on the brace it would show more on the sides of the brace.. what I am thinking anyways . jody

I dont know what happened to the edit feature but ,,, I guess run out would show on the top of the brace with the grain running at an angle across the top,,, I just made my first x braces , they started a little off quarter , so I sanded the edge until i had it near perfect , then cut it on the table saw ,, with the one prominant verticle grain basicly ending up like an I beam, runnning the lenghth of the brace.... anyways that is what I am thinking of as a "quartered" brace.Jody

Splitting is not needed to detect visable grain orientation(obviously, you can see it easily).

We split to detect runnout in the face grain(at least that is what I have called it). If you think about a curly wood that is cut very close to quarter. When split perpendicular to that visable grain, it will reveal the face grain (in the case of curly it will roll with the curls). In wood that is straighter grained (non-curly) you split the face grain(again not the visable growth rings) to detect how it runs. Again not the growth rings you look at to determine how close to quarter wood has been cut.

actualy now that I think about it , my piece of brace wood was a cut bit askew, so I sanded the side, and top, and bottom of the brace stock ,on my mini bench belt sander , making it as close to perfectly quartered as I could... then I ran it through the table saw with the " squared "edge against the fence, creating a nice loooking I beam type brace . Jody