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I have some nicely quartersawn Spanish cedar and mahogany that I've been thinking of using for back braces on a couple of classicals. Is it necessary for me to split it, or can I just cut the brace blanks? If it needs to be split, can someone explain how to do this and the direction to split it in. Any advice is appreciated. Wendy

Hey Wendy....and welcome to the OLF....excuse me for a moment...

I BEAT HESH TO A POST!

Sorry Wendy...don't mean to detract from your post...we get a little silly around here from time to time. But mostly we're just passionate about guitar building. So anyway....here's a picture of what you DON'T want your bracewood to do.

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There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

Notice in the picture above that the split line is not straight. My grandmother's stockings have straighter runs in them than this bracewood does.

Essentially you need to identify runout...or areas of the wood where grain doesn't run straight to be more specific. To identify this runout take a field hatchet or dull chisel (really dull)...or some other object in your shop that will function in the same manner...lay it perpendicular to the grain...and hit it. You are looking for a straight split.

Once you got a straight split saw off a piece that runs the length of your bracewood stock, about an 1/8 inch thick...hold it in your hands and twist it. You are trying to break it. Now you are trying to verify runout on the second plane or axis. What you are looking for again is a break that runs in a straight line. NOT one that runs in a curve or crosses the stick from one side to the other.

More will chime in here that can explain this a little better. I learned this here...and thought I might pass it forward.

Chris

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There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

Hi Wendy,

Now that Chris showed you what NOT to do, here is what you should do! Cut your wood to the rough length you need and split it halves, in both orientations, if you can. Now you have two split faces that are perpendicular to each other. Clean these split faces up on a jointer if you have one or with a hand plane if you don't, and now you can saw your braces to dimension and you have oriented your braces to the natural faces of the wood. I cut thousands of board feet of brace wood and this is similiar to how I do it all of the time.

If my written description is not very clear, I will split some spruce and take some pics so you can see what I mean.

Good Luck

Shane

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Canada

Shane,

What is the benefit of splitting over cutting?

Mike

You know Mike, I don't think there is a lot. Others might disagree but I have switched a number of makers to sawn bracewood as there is less waste and as long as it is processed properly it should exhibit the same properties as split bracewood. The goal is maximize the potential from specific piece of wood that you have. Remember that braces are structural elements so care should be taken in their selection. Starting with split faces (for me that is the wedge that occurs as I split out top billets in to rectangular forms) allows one to assess the brace stock. If there is twist in the block I would not use the wood. Once you have a split face reference then sawing you braces is the way to go as far as I am concerned. Keep the bang on quarter and ensure that you are following grain lines (initial splitting will give that as ling as you are splitting in full halves, split a little piece off of one side and the split will go across grainlines).

Hope that helps!

Shane

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Canada

I don't see much point to splitting along a tangential surface, parallel to the annular rings. If there is any runout in that direction, you can see it easily--the ring lines will run out the side of the board.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Kind of what I thought.

Mike

I wouldn't try splitting Spanish cedar or mahogany.
If there's a good quartersawn face and the grain runs straight just rip it on the tablesaw, or the bandsaw.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Hey, thanks for all the fast replies. So I am going to assume that the spruce and WRC brace stock that I originally got from LMI and is already split on one face, can just be sawn into the brace sizes that I need for the tops. Do you all agree with Laurent that Mahogany and Spanish Cedar for the back braces can be sawn from a quartersawn board, or do you all split these as well? And thanks for the splitting lesson. Wendy

Wendy,

Both Laurent and Howard's comments are correct. If you look closely at your wood and can see the grain orientation then you can just follow grain lines. The spanish cedar and Honduras Mahongany that I have both exhibit more "curve" in the grain than my spruce or cedar does. So splitting would only be wasteful and you would still have to make adecision and true a face up and saw from there. So I agree, just saw that. There is a lot less stress on back braces than on top braces in any regard.

Now, GET TO WORK, and show us some of your progress shots!

Shane

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Canada

I have bought brace stock from several suppliers that was supposedly sawn from a split face and found significant runout in some of the wood from all. For that reason I split everything myself to make sure. For the record, I have never purchased brace stock from Shane so I am not suggesting his wood falls into this category.

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David White, Toronto

"All my favourite singers can't sing."

Don't assume anything. What I do with my pre cut billets cut from split face wood is cut a piece from the end and split it and tape it back to the side of the billet so I can see the runout it . If the runout is more then 1/8" for brace length I don't use it. Sometimes you can get certain braces form different areas of the wood or recut the one face to the runout and use the wood. This has some runout and some bumps but can be trued up to work but I won't use it for my X braces since I have better billets then this one. Splitting it is the only way to know what you got.

Chris - Those look like PRE-SCALLOPED braces.

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Steve Walden
Aspiring Builder,
Bartlesville, OK

Chris,
In my experience, you almost never (probably always never) get a representative split by splitting off the edge of a piece like that. As the thin piece comes off the split will tear across the grain and not follow the grain line. You need to split in halves, or least in larger sections so that the pressure on each side of the split are equal. I am not saying anything about the quality of that piece of wood (it looks like some of mine ) I am just saying that you might not be getting a true representation of what you are looking at. I know that you have done a bunch of work on this stuff but I thought I should just make this observation.

Shane

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Canada

I'm not sure what you are saying Shane. What I did was cut an 1/4" wide strip form the billet and then split it in half across the grain as if I were spliting a brace.

That was right Chris, I didn't realize you had sawn a piece off first and then split it. So you did indeed split in half and that will get you about as true as you get.

Shane

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Canada

I was wondering if you ment that if it was wider it would react differently. I'm no expert at anything so I went to the shop and cut a 3/4" piece and split it to see if it made any difference. Well it's a perfect match as I thought it would be but never hurts to check when in doubt?