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Do many of you guys split bracewood from the billet? I just received my order from Mario at Spruce Tonewoods and I just split my first billet! Are there any tricks, special tools that help yield more wood? I feel like the first attempt went pretty well, but I think I tried to get more yield than I should have.

IMHO, there is no need to split a billet more than once. Just saw the rest of the braces parallel to the split.
Splitting every brace will definitely reduce the yield, versus sawing.
The billet you pictured is OK, but straighter grain is better.

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John

http://chairnotes.blogspot.com/2011/01/promises-kept-finally.html

Although spruce is a bit different while splitting it holds the same principles. Peter Galbert is a wonderful chair maker that has taken the time to teach us skills that are usually learned over lots of trial and error. This has been one of my favorite blogs since I started woodworking.

The wood pictured has a slight curve to each piece almost fitting perfectly in the radius dish. Should I just keep the curve and sand and shape to the radius dish?

We only need to split a billet twice; once in each direction. We can then plane the split faces, and proceed to rip(saw) the braces from that face. If the billet was already obviously split when you received it, it was ready to go at that point.

The reason for splitting is that this causes the billet to fracture(split) on its weakest line and will follow the wood's natural grain, as long as you always split any billet in half. Slight curves and "wiggles" is normal, and we simply plane and saw through them. Major curves and wiggles relegates the wood to the kindling box....

I am only doing this because I was told by someone to try this method! I will take your advise on the next billet!!! My question is can I use the slight curve to my advantage? Not the big wiggles on the end! I will cut those for smaller finger braces.

I think warped wood is just weaker to begin with.

I'd find straighter brace stock, at least for the x-es. You can use shorter sections for fingers and soundhole braces.

Splitting the wood yourself IS a good idea to ensure quality.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

get what you can from the straight portions and fire up the bbq for the rest imo. i'm kinda in the same boat out here in the tonewood void of los angeles. i usually end up buying 2x the amount i need to get something good out of it. fwiw: lately though, i seem to get more yield from stewmac's bracewood. i wouldn't use the curved portions for anything.

If the curve is close to what you would have to cut into the brace to make it match the dish, then yes, by all means, use it to your advantage! That will be the ideal brace right there...

The wavy end sections, as you've noted, need to be cut out.

Grumpy,
That's what I've read and been advised to do! This should give me less runout! I'm I correct? I just have to be sure that the wood is dry and has stopped all movement before using!

Correct; if the wood is naturally curved in the direction you need it, then it will have the absolute minimum runout possible.

Perhaps the way I do it is unnecessary, or maybe most replies on the forum are by default with the thought that the discussion pertains to 'steel string acoustic guitars' unless specified otherwise, but I like to split soundboard braces (for classicals) in both directions until I'm reasonably close, say within a few mm or so, and then plane to final brace width to minimize runout. For the fan braces this means splitting down to fairly straight blanks of about 10mm x 10mm prior to planing to final width, which is generally in the neighborhood of 4mm to 6mm. Yes, this does generate more waste and some rejected brace stock altogether.

Joe

I'm afraid I'd just reject that billet altogether - maybe use some of it for the less critical braces. There really isn't much point in splitting wood if the grain isn't straight. The idea is to get maximum stiffness along the length of the strut, by having the grain running parallel to the surfaces (i.e. long grain, no runout).

I tend to split down to a size where I'll get 2 or 3 braces out of the split pieces - not quite as far as Joe goes, but I prefer to do more than one split in each direction. If the billet is perfectly straight grained throughout, then it doesn't really matter that much.

James

He is currently asking if he should use the curve to his advantage. Of course he SHOULD. Why on earth would you get rid of an almost perfectly curved brace that matched the radius of your guitar top? Isn't this the ultimate goal on brace wood, getting the least amount of runout which in turn produces the strongest piece of wood where all grain follows the entire length of the stock?

And if you feel you want to get the most strength out of your brace wood and don't mind having more waste then by all means split down to your approximate brace size. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this practice. This technique has be used for years, especially on Windsor style chairs where you can get away with as thin of a spindle as possible and still have an incredibly strong chair that will last generations.

I have been working with split wood for a long while and rely heavily on this method for a lot of my furniture stock. There is no better method for getting perfectly quartered white oak with amazing ray fleck figure on smallish projects. I split maple, ash, oak, spruce, fir, just about any local wood I like using in my pieces. Most of the time I let the stock dry before getting too close in dimension but sometimes I will use the stock fairly wet in order to take advantage of the properties of wood for adding strength to my joinery without having to rely on glue bond strength. These methods I have learned from Windsor chair makers and from guy's like Peter Follansbee. Peter's work is sometimes a little more rough in design than I care for but his techniques are very sound. I also have never build a Windsor style chair but have learned a lot from their methods.

Wow, there are some really strong, mixed opinions on this method!

Don't let 'em get to ya....

My problem with using it is that from the photos it doesn't look at all likely that the curve is regular enough to make any "almost perfectly curved" braces. Depends a bit what size braces you're talking about, but for classical braces which are often only 3mm high, I'd want the curve to be within 0.5mm of the top radius.

James

I just cut the bracing to rough size & shaped the radius in my dish. It's coming out great thanks for the help & all the advise! cheers

An ax works okay for large pieces, but when the pieces get smaller, you should use something smaller to split with. Some guys use a wood Fro or something thinner like a large buck knife. Once it splits, you can almost pull it apart by hand. The heavier head of an ax can easily twist with such a light wood as spruce and tear sideways.

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Jason Moe
LaCrosse WI 54601

Thank you Jason!

Been away so sorry for the delay in adding this. Just a bit more info for the files:

http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=24665&p=333897&hilit=brace#p333897

Shane

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Canada

I like to do the splitting of smaller pieces with an old, dull, cheap kitchen knife...

You know exactly the ones I am talking about... Made by the billions out of the cheapest "Stainless" steel possible.. Won't hold an edge for more than 3 minutes so long as it's sitting in the block without being used.... The one that goes dull between the time it comes off the stone and it hits the tomato..

With the knife - I found the splits are much more likely to split and not crack at random as they are when you whomp away with an axe....

Otherwise - absolutely use those curves to your advantage... Think of what we do... Take straight pieces and cut them into curves.... Why not use Curved pieces and just clean up the curves...

But.. As Mario already mentioned... The reason we split them twice - one with and 1 across the grain is to verify it's well behaved... After that - sawing them out works just fine and wastes a WHOLE lot less wood....

Thanks