John,
Take care when selecting and converting brace material.
Boxed heart from small diameter material will have an excess of sap wood and also juvenile wood (including the pith)near the centre. Boxed heart is going to check on the face with the shortest distance to the pith. If you are unlucky and the pith wanders then you can end up with a drying crack on both sides of the brace and if you are making braces with bare face tenons then at least one of the tenons will have a cracked face even before you drive a peg.
Halving a timber will provide a crack free brace but as pointed out above this will result in the peg being situated on or near the pith. As we have often heard on these pages not all braces are pegged and hence maybe this kind of material would be Ok for this application.
It is really much better to use slabbed material taken well away from the heart.
Ken Hume
