Official Luthiers Forum!

I just used up all my Sitka spruce brace wood. I have a bunch of sapele, walnut and pine. Can any of these be used and still sound good?

Oh yeah, I don't need it for this guitar, just thinking ahead.

_________________
Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

An easy source of bracewood is the lumber yard. Get spruce in some 2xX format and split it to discover the runout. You’ll have to cut at whatever angle gives you the grain orientation that you want. There can be a lot of waste, but you’ll be paying $1/board foot vs $20/ board foot, so you ought not mind making firewood. Select your wood for close grain and knot free stretches. It’s hard to find wood without too many knots, but there’s often at least one in the pile. I find the bigger dimensioned wood is often more clear. I think you’ll be happier with your results using spruce rather than the aforementioned hardwoods for bracing.

That said, I pay the big bucks for bracewood from ASW. He does all the work selecting and splitting. I appreciate the convenience and I pay for it. The price per isn’t too bad if you buy a big box already split.

Pone is, of course, a softwood, and reasonably resilient, so it should make decent brace stock. The local white pine tends to by low in density, so you would need larger cross section area to get the requisite stiffness, and I'd make it wider for more gluing surface as well.

I get a lot of brace wood from the lumber yard. The 'S-P-F' lumber that the local yards carry is 'spruce, pine and fir', all good. Whenever I'm doing some construction I keep my eyes open when I buy the wood, and squirrel away an extra piece or two. Demolition can be even better: lots of the framework in local buildings is Red spruce that was cut locally in the 19th century. I have yet to get good guitar soundboards from this, but have used it for a number of violin tops, and lots of bracing.

I find brace wood in salvage lumber - old window sashes, flooring, an odd board that has been out in the weather and may need to be run through the planer to reveal the good core of material still there.
For soundboard bracing I prefer spruce, but would also use Douglas fir if it had the right properties. For back braces I am less picky and will use pine or even mahogany in some cases. I'm sure many other woods could be used, but there seems to be abundant scrap "softwoods", once you start looking.
When buying 2X's from the lumberyard the stuff marked SPF (spruce, pine, fir, group) is likely to be mostly spruce in this part of the country (mid Atlantic).Brief Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce-pine-fir
Even though kiln dried, I like to split and further dry lumberyard dimensional lumber before using it. You can often find "off cuts" in the skips at construction sites so there is no heartache using what doesn't pass muster for brace wood as kindling.

Alan- great minds think alike!

I can't find spruce in the lumber yards here in Texas, so I get brace stock from Alaska Specialty in the form of a box of split brace wood. Good stuff and it will last you through many guitars. I really like the fact that the braces will be long grain. You won't get this with most other suppliers. I bought this box after finding that LMII brace wood was very poorly cut at an 20 degree angle to the grain. Almost useless.

2X4's or 2X6's have a grade stamp on them, which is very useful. The S-P-F marking signifies a few species with similar strength ratings. The typical S-P-F species are Engelmann spruce, lodgepole pine, and white fir. Sometimes Ponderosa pine can be found in this grouping. While all will make decent bracing, I do prefer Engelmann. With a little study, the species can be distinguished. Pine is more resinous, with dark knots. White fir is similar to Engelmann, but often has a disagreeable scent, and has no resin canals. It also tends to be a bit softer and weaker than the other two.
Another grade marking is Hem-Fir, which groups Western hemlock and Douglas fir. Those are a bit stronger than the S-P-F species. Doug fir has a distinctive odor most associated with plywood. Hemlock is practically odorless, with no resin canals.
To sum up:
Engelmann: white, resin canals, small light brown knots, sweet smell
Pine: yellowish with darker heartwood, resin canals, larger dark brown knots, rosin (pine) smell, waxy feel
White fir: white, no resin canals, small light brown knots, disagreeable smell
Hemlock: tan to light reddish brown, no resin canals, little or no odor
Doug fir: medium reddish brown, resin canals, plywood smell

Lodgepole pine often has dimple figure, which is most visible on tangential (slab) surfaces. I have also seen this in Ponderosa.

I have found that the narrower sizes (2X4, 2X6) generally exhibit little or no runout, due to the fact that the trees are so small. Runout in quartered wood is almost always the result of spiral growth, and spiral is usually a characteristic of the older (larger) trees.


The kiln drying for 2X lumber is minimal. I have seen moisture content as high as 15%, with 12% being typical.

_________________
John

I get a kick driving by lumber yards and seeing a pile of 2x stock out in the rain sporting a sign that says: "Kiln dried". Yeah, once...

Doug fir and redwood are a bit splitty for my taste for brace wood.

I used Ponderosa Pine from my yard for my local wood guitars, same as the top. Worked fine, sounds fine.

Why can I not say ponderosa pine in my head without following it up with https://youtu.be/HDOpLKS7Tjs


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

_________________
Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

My mom would have me go out to the front yard and have me cut a skinny elm tree switch for that.

Interesting thread; 100% of framing lumber (we call it timber) over here is plantation radiata pine (Monterey pine).


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lol. Bracewood abounds. Just go rifle a construction dumpster. All you need is a piece containing a 2' section which is straight grained and knot free.

I had to force myself to stop buying dimensional lumber and sifting construction dumpsters for bracewood stock.

It turns out, a guitar only consumes a teeny bit of split brace wood, and I've got well over 200 guitars worth of boards I've squirrelled away for exactly this.

Yes on looking at the specific stampings on the wood. The stamps tell you what it is, as even S-P-F will have a little stamp somewhere that says what it is... WP = white pine.. WF = white fir, and so on.

I invested in buying large amounts of various woods whenever I could. I've got a fair bit of Englemann and Lutz. I bought Sitka from an aircraft company (cut offs) that was a pretty good deal. A lot of it was off quarter, but I just adjusted the table on my bandsaw and ripped it. It didn't have much runout, so that made things a lot easier. It didn't take too much time.