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I have some brace stock that I bought from Allied and LMI. It's those rectangular blocks they sell that are roughly 1.5 x 1.5 x 20. It's nicely quartered but I'm wondering about runout. Is it safe to assume little to no runout and just cut them into brace demensions or should I split these first and cut along the split?

TIA

Roy Roy O38657.4950115741

Roy, it might be a good idea to saw off one brace thickness with the correct grain orientation and then try to split that as a check. At least then you can feel confident and you may not waste any wood ay all.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Thanks John. I was thinking of doing that but first wanted to see what others experience was with these blocks of wood.

I have a few cut to those same dimension but from a different supplier and have used them without the slip test and had good result. But.....After your comment I took a look at some of them and see that there may be a little runnout in some of them so I will probably test in the future.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

I had one absolutely horrible piece of LMI brace stock that obviously was from a tree with spiral growth. The split line rotated about 30 degrees over the length of the brace stock. Yikes! And it was rubbery as all heck. Firewood basically.

[QUOTE=Pete Licis] brace stock that obviously was from a tree with spiral growth. [/QUOTE]

Yikes is right...... Decision made, I'll split my brace stock. Thanks.

LMI claims that one face of each billet of brace stock is split. I've always taken them at their word and use that as my starting point for cutting braces. Some builders are fanatical about braces and split every one. I have yet to see the need for that.

LMI claims that one face of each billet of brace stock is split

Interestingly, it did have one face split ... but the split portion only ran a few inches down that particular face, then ran off the face, and the rest of the "split face" was sawn. Basically like they split it, saw the twist, and removed the portion of the split that would show how severly it was twisted. I'm saying they did that on purpose ... it just appears to have happened for whatever reason.

I've bought brace billets before, too. Some of the best I've bought, incidentally, were not even brace stock billets, but were contrabass bass bar billets from International Violin (the bass bar is a brace located on the bass side of a violin-type instrument). Contrabass bass bars are big enough to get enough brace stock for three, maybe even four guitars.

I always start out by splitting a piece of brace stock. Usually I will do this toward one edge after examining the grain, to check for the likely direction of the runout. Once this is known, I'm able to split the brace stock with less waste.

To shape braces, I will often cut them on the bandsaw once they've been split, but just as often I'll plane them to final dimensions.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

To determine if your brace stock has twist just look at the end grain on each end. They should both run at the same attitude (perferrably straight up and down!) If one end sloopes in one direction and the other slopes in the opposite direction then you will have twist. Also, when splitting brace stock, always try to half the sections down to the size you need, they will split straighter in my opinion. All of the stock I sell is sawn from split billets so I guess I am really the only one who knows for sure how straight the billets split. But, I also readily tell everyone what they are getting. Fortunately, all of the stock I have on hand (a couple of hundred square feet) was cut from billets that split straight and all from the same tree. Intuitively I think that brace stock almost needs to be better quality than the top sets.

Shane

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Canada

Shanes brace stock is indeed very straight. Good stuff!

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Intuitively I think that brace stock almost needs to be better quality than the top sets.

Agreed. It should be the highest standard we set.

Looking at the end grain only shows if the grain is straight in that plane; it needs to be split the other way also, to determine both directions.

I used to take bracewood for granted, until the day I heard a guitar a friend was playing let out a loud "snap", followed by going right out of tune. Upon a close look later on, one of the legs of the X brace split from the top of the brace, at an angle right to the top. Brace broke! Major runout(either saw induced or twist; hard to tell at that point).

I've split every piece of brace stock since seeing that one.

And yes, splitting MUST be done in halves at all times; otherwise, the split may not follow the natural grain. By splitting equal halves each time, the stress on each side of the split is balanced. Also, the tool used to do the splitting should be dull, not sharp. You want to force the wood apart, not cut it it.

Thanks for the insight. I'll be splitting brace wood later this week and will follow the advice given here.