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While cutting up some wood to toss in the burn barrel I noticed some fairly straight and tight grain in an old weathered fence stringer. I decided to see if I could get any brace wood out of it. I pulled the nails (those I could see) and took it to the table saw. When doing this type of thing with "salvage lumber" two things to keep in mind - don't stand in the line of fire and always wear safety glasses.

After cutting around the bad wood I did manage to get a reasonable amount of well dried and stiff brace wood of all sizes - more than I thought it would yield. I'm guessing it is some sort of fir.

I don't throw away anything wooden.... I figure it can always be cut down and used in something. I even have boxes of sawdust that are decades old....

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

there's gotta be a limit

I used to be this way, but one only has so much storage space ...at this point I only hoard the good stuff and when needed replace stuff as it gets used up for templates and such

The good thing about salvaged wood is that you know it's well seasoned and settled and you can get some really nice looking stuff lurking beneath the surface.

I too like to save everything (much to the despair of my wife), If I can't put it to good use I stick it all together and make mice from it and give them to friends and family.

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https://overendsite.wordpress.com/2017/ ... -complete/

That's a nice save Clay! Some good looking stock there.

For a few years I used to buy all the 50s cheapo acoustics I could just to pull the bracing out of them. Lots of times the guitars aren't worth fixing but the spruce that was used is way old and dry, and lots of times they were just glued in square and uncut so there's lot of meat to make braces with. It's a good bit of work just for the brace wood but it can be worth it.

Good example, I recently completed a monster project completely rebuilding an 1890s Tonk Brothers parlor. This included an X brace conversion. The wood for it was a question because the owner specifically didn't want it to not look 100+ years old. I had a late 20s Oahu cheapo in the back that had been sitting for over a year. Removed all the old braces and had exactly enough wood to make each brace including wood for a few crack repair patches.

I've actually gotten some good brace wood from my firewood pile. I had a couple of cords of Englemann spruce a few years back and when I'd split kindling every now and then (not too often) one would split really straight so I'd set aside. Turns out I had some nice brace wood.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com