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Lately a few people have called to ask me some questions on bracewood. A recent request resulted in me agreeing to post some thoughts on bracewood. Chris Paulick has done a great job with his videos (look in the tutorial section) and much of this may be a repeat but sometimes seeing things in different fashions helps get the point across. So before I start, I need to clear the air! To date I am mostly a tonewood producer (coming from a long woodworking background (rather than logging!)). I have a couple of guitars under way, one has the box closed up and the other not yet. So from a guitar building standpoint I am not experienced. But I have had the great fortune of association with some very fine builders and authours, such as Bill Cumpiano, Roger Siminoff, John Greven and many others. So I have researched most aspects of building extensively and discussed them at great length. Enough on that.

Bracewood. Sawn or Split? I will show you how I produce it and tell you why.

For Sawn stock I start with a split wedge, fallout from producing guitar top billets. They look like this:



I take this billet and clamp it into my sliding carriage on my resaw and slice off the sap wood, following a grain line. I have a laser that aids in this process. Here is the bottom sawn:



Next I flip the piece 90 degrees to get face square to the bottom, like this:



Once I have two sawn faces, the bottom and one side, with the piece displaying nice edge grain up the side, I start to saw "boards" off the billet to 3/4", like this:



Once they are cut you will have pieces that look like these, and this is typical recovery from a wedged billet:



Once I have them in this state, I then go to my table saw and ensure that these boards sawn edge are all running along grain lines (if I did a good job on the re-saw no correction is required, but sometimes, especially in tight grained wood, I will need to draw a line with a pencil that follows a grain line and trim the board). Once I am sure that the board follows the grain, I then table saw the "board" to maximum width for a rectangular board (I cut off any triangular pieces). So now I have a board that will be about 22" long, 3/4" thick and whatever width (usually 2 to 6 inches), perfectly vertical grain.

Next I dry these boards by stickering them and letting air run over them. Once they are dry, I then thickness sand to remove all saw marks. Then I go back to my table saw and with a thin kerf blade (7.25" Diablo blades) slice strips just over 1/4" wide. Then I thickness these to 1/4" (again removing all saw marks), the thickness of my all of my top braces (except some of the upper bout stuff). So then you have a pile of brace stock that looks like this that sits in your shop and acclimates, ready for your next build:



I will show some Split Stock in the next line (I am running out of picture space).

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Canada

That's how it's done.

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CVT Inc.
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For Split Bracewood, as has been mentioned before, you need to split in halves. This is important because to do otherwise will likely result in the split crossing grain lines. By splitting in halves there is equal resistance on either side of your splitting tool so the wood separates along a grain line. So, for hand splitting, I start in the same place, a split wedge:



Then I collect my tools of choice for this operation, a wooden mallet I made for timber framing and a small hatchet:



Next, I make my first split, halving the billet:



Following that, it is just a series of halves until you get dimensions you are looking for, something like this:



Once you get near the sizes you want you will have something like this:



This is just over 3/4" thick and 1 1/2" wide. From here you can either true up two faces by hand plane or on a jointer, or you can continue splitting. A word of caution though. If you continue to split down from here, it is a good idea to cut the stock to shorter lengths as there is less force now holding the split to a grain line and the splits can start to wonder. Just pay close attention as you go and try this process on some lumber yard spruce first.

A couple of thoughts on bracewood:

1) This is a structural component in the guitar and as such I believe that this is not the place to compromise.

2) So, what does "compromise" mean? Well, the tradition is that bracestock should be free of runout and perfectly quartered. The runout I can agree with but tests, science and history do not prove out the "perfectly on quarter" component. Roger Siminoff has advocated for years, largely based on some old instruments that he has had in his hands and tests he has conducted, that bracestock does not need to be, nor should be quartered. Somogyi has show that in many cases flat sawn wood, and in some cases, rift sawn wood is as stiff or stiffer than quarter sawn wood. So the most important thing one needs to do is understand "how stiff" one wants their top to be and what they can do to adjust to that stiffness. Maybe less stiff braces have a place with a very stiff top and vis versa.

3) But, since we all like well quartered tops, it makes sense, from a stability perspective anyways, that well quartered braces will have some benefit. But I leave that discussion to others with more experience than I.

4) I have concluded that I can get bracestock that is very well machined using my saw method, so that is what I use for myself. I pay attention to the details and I think I produce wood that easily matches and often betters split bracestock. But others enjoy the use of hand tools in producing this wood and if done with care and attention, one would be hard pressed to argue that split braces are not as good as you can get!

I hope this is of some value in answering some questions and I hope this thread will allow for more discussion to answer any questions outstanding.

Thanks

Shane

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Canada

Thank's Shane. I am sure everyone appreciates your efforts.

Excellent visual Shane. Thanks for taking the time to post this

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John Ressler

Shane I noticed you saw off the sap wood. Do you consider it inferior?

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

Shane,

That is exactly what I have been looking for. Thank you for taking the time to go into such detail and to include such clear pictures.

Kathy Somerville

Shane - this is great ! I will be calling you hopefully tomorrow to put in an order - or do you prefer PM or email ?

Your tutorials / show and tell are excellent !



Do you all split Western Cedar for braces as well ? or would you use the sawn method ?


Thanks !

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Hey John,

I have cedar billets and sawn bracewood as well. I have a couple of high end customers that like cedar for back braces so I always keep a bit on hand. For orders email is probably best, I am out and about most days. shane@highmountaintonewood.com

Thanks

Shane

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Canada

You da man for bracewood, Shane!

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Hey Kathy,

I am glad it answered the questions. Thanks for the nudge to get this done!

Shane

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Canada

Shane you never cease to amaze me !

All the tops & brace stock I've received from you are just cut & prepared right!
Plus they're dry !!

It's great & reassuring to deal with you!
How's X-caliper??

Mc

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Mike Collins

Nicely done Shane. Are you going to put this in the Tutorial section also? It certainly should be there. Thanks for doing it.

Sorry Chris, I got a bit distracted! In Sitka and its hybrids the sap wood drys a different colour so I don't use it for tops. It also has WAY more water (moisture) in it than the wood inside of the sapwood. Also, the bugs will bore into the sapwood and make a mess (that is why the colour is darker on the sapwood in the picture above). In bracewood it probably is OK to use the sapwood as colour is less of an issue but I am a creature of habit.....you wouldn't want to look at my firewood pile!

Shane

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Canada

Thanks for the pictorial very interesting

Thanks, Shane.

I didn't know about the 'splitting in halves' thing, so never to late to learn...

My first guitar was built 'back in the day' when you could get pretty good spruce from construction lumber, and I split the braces from some 2x6 cutoffs. Now, with 'perfect' wood from folks like you, I've gotten lazy!

Cheers
John

I am just bumping this because I have been getting a few more questions on this stuff again lately.

Shane

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Canada

Have you split with and across the grain ?

Yup, if you look at the picture of the split sections (captioned "series split") you will see the various splits in both directions.

Thanks
Shane

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Canada

Thank you Shane! I have some of your split bracewood ready to go.