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I'm trying to split a billet to minimize runout for braces and the thing is just not splitting in one piece. Here is the results after several tries. I put the billet on end and aline the chisel with the grain at the end and tap with hammer. Is it me or the wood?

I'm at a stopping point until I get this figured out. How can a simple thing like spiltting a billet turn out to be a mess? This red spruce cost to much to turn into fire wood chips.

I always use a dull edged fro to split them cleanly. If your chisel is too sharp it could be gouging beyond the natural grain plane. Just a thought.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

If youre trying to minimize runout wouldnt you want to split perpendicular to the grain?

Warren.

Hmmm, you might just be right. After looking back at the Cumpiano book it does say square with the end grain.
Okay then if I get the board split with the runout can I then just cut the brace width on a band saw and not worry about splitting it?

Once you get your variant of a "froe" oriented correctly, split the brace billet exactly in half. Then, split each of the halves in half. Continue until they are small enough. Eventually, almost everyone joints one of the split faces, and then saws parallel to that to get the final brace size.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

There's no need to keep splitting once you get a grain orientation, especially given the size of most brace stock. It's not going to change significantly as you saw the rest of the piece.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Chris,

Dennis and Howard have given you all the advice there is to splitting brace stock. First, if you have a billet that you are splitting from make sure that you are indeed splitting in halves, otherwise your split will run out. And as Howard has said once you have a split face to orient your stock from, sawing and jointing is just fine. All of the bracewood I process is sawn from a split face and some very discerning guitar makers are using it even though they used to only used hand split braces.

Good Luck!

Shane

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Canada

What type of results would you get from just cutting brace stock with a saw?

Do you get better quality brace material split off a billet?

Chris, you must have missed this discussion on brace wood splitting on your visits. Good stuff.

http://www.mimf.com/cgi-bin/WebX?14@141 ... 2cb67dd5/0

The best tool I have found for splitting, short of buying a Froe, is a 3" cold chisel, and not a particularly sharp one. It is dull enough to pop the wood, and wide enough to complete the split.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Technically, that's what I meant when I said Cold Chisel.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I prefer to leave a split edge on bits of brace stock I send out, that way the person recieving doesn't have to waist more wood confirming what they do or do not have. As soon as I have a split face, I square as close to the face as I can and then I saw it up. I am only interested in splitting the face, as there isn't much point in splitting along the visable grain lines(as long as your splitting and not slicing it will split along the visable grain). Sometimes you get a bit that does not split too straight along its length and you don't get long pieces. I use those for smaller brace stock. If a piece splits well and I get nice big long billets, I cut it up for mains. It is good to get the most out of what you have, as trying to only use long stock wastes a lot of good wood.

Rich

Thanks guys, I'll pick up a brick chisel if I can't find one around, I use to have one somewhere.
Thanks Larry, I read the first half of that discussion and forgot that it was there.
So let see if I have this correct then. Split it square to the grain will establish run out. And splitting it with the grain will give me grain orientation. And I want too have both as straight as possible. By splitting it with the grain I can see if it is twisted too.

No need to spilt with the grain as the grain is easily visible.

Chris Paulick wrote:
"So let see if I have this correct then. Split it square to the grain will establish run out. And splitting it with the grain will give me grain orientation. "

You forgot the most important part: always split the piece in half. The main problem you are having now is that the split is running out toward the smaller side rather than following the grain.

Oh Yes. Thanks for reminding me Alan.
Seems like this would be a good subject for a tutorial video along with brace shaping.
(Hint Todd) I'd make one if I knew what I was doing!!!

I was just at the site where I purchased my brace wood and it states that the brace wood stock pieces are hand split to minimize run out and the pieces are cut from there. So am I over concerned with splitting them again to check the run out?
Should I just cut the wood to width and make the braces and get on with it?

If it's the same place I got some, I was amazed at how much grain curving was going on in the stuff I got. I just ended up throwing it away. Not one good runout free brace out of a couple of sticks. Get some brace stock from Shane. His is really straight grained, tight grained, and well split, then sawn into boards. You can easily take one of his brace sticks and just saw it up, and have runout free braces.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Well where did you get your stuff?

He was referring to Shane at High Mountain Tonewoods...one of the sponsors.

Darrin

I'm in the process of getting wood from Shane and I'm waiting for a reply to an email. And I received a PM as to the bad stuff.
I cut 6" off the end of a piece and split it twice. Does this look acceptable for run out?

It appears that the run out is 1/4" per 6" and that isn't any good. I also looked over my invoice and the brace wood was a freebie so I wasn't charged for it. After splitting the remaining 18" piece of the board at both ends I could see the run out was the same and I noticed how one side of the board was smooth and somewhat reflective of light and the other side was ruff or fuzzy looking as you could see the run out.