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Me and a fellow luthier in my area are looking to do a bunch of R&D on bracing tops. We are looking to brace up a ton of cheap tops to get an idea what different things do.
so, far we have a good lead on cheap tops for doing this and now we are looking for a good place to get brace wood.
we are looking to brace up about 20 tops. So, where are some good places to look?

john preston for euro spruce bracewood, sitka, brent cole alaska , and adi spruce from old standard spruce?? in fulton mo. There are many others Other folks will endorse their favorites .The cheapest is picking through the englemann spruce pile of 2 by 3 at H. depot from stimson lumber idaho/ oregon

The only wood at my local HD or Lowes is all pine or Doug fir. I have never seen spruce here and I look every time I go. You all are lucky if you get some spruce. Cheap bracewood, patches, etc.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Me sure you gonna see some spruce if you go for a walk in your local coniferous forest...
be sure to take a chain saw.

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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I think John Preston is the least expensive.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I always get bracewood from alaska specialty woods (www.alaskawoods.com) Im sure they could hook you up.

What I like about bracewood from Alaska Specialty is that Brent offers split or non-split wood, with a reasonable upcharge for the split. Having had the beginner's experience of buying quartered bracewood that mostly turned out to be useless because of runout, including some pricey Adirondack from Allied, I don't mind paying a little more to get better wood. And the price isn't that high.

My experience is that if bracewood is advertised as quartered but hand-split is not mentioned, it's usually got runout. When hand-split is mentioned, it usually doesn't have runout. Of course, you have to test in either case.

If you get really cheap bracewood that isn't that good, and/or is variable in stiffness, your experiment is compromised. The good thing about buying your wood from someone like Brent, or John Preston, is that they'll work with you. Seems like what you'd want is bracewood all from one part of one tree, and then you'd measure the stiffness, or at least the density, of each piece before using.

The main cost of this project is your time. If you can hunt up an inexpensive piece of quartered, runout-free spruce at a lumber yard without investing a lot of hours, you've saved money. If the results of your project can't be generalized because you used nonuniform bracewood, you've lost money.

One final notion--I assume your tops are decent. You could use hide glue to layer off-cut strips (i.e., "leaf spring" bracing) and not have to buy any bracewood. Possibly that approach introduces a confounding variable you don't want, but it's a shortcut around the bracing cost problem.

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Tim Allen
"Never hurry, never rest."

I second the motion for home stores... Once you have worked Spruce for a while - you can pick it out pretty quickly.... So far, I have bought a nice stack of Fancy Pants split "Bracewood" - but I have never actually built a guitar out of it... They are all built with braces split out of 2x4 wood...

Call me a phillistine...

Thanks

I buy from abt 4 different sources for bracewood. Each type of wood IMHO gets mated with a different style or bracing pattern of top.Some winds up as lining.Perhaps you need to reexamine your goal to see what you are trying to accomplish soundwise or strength wise before you decide to go with a particular dealer. You can further breakdown the bracewood to, hard/stiff . medium , and soft depending on its application.

Man, I googled John Preston, and I got some 'wood' references alright, but not the ones I was expecting

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If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. - Jack Handey