how do you determine the length of the brace mortise pocket?
In square rule layout you have to allow some space for irregular sized timbers. We don't know for sure what the mortise pocket length will be unless we label each brace to each pocket and cut them to fit exact.
To eliminate this problem we make the pocket over sized a bit on all of them so that any brace can go into any pocket. That's the value in using square rule layout.
As Mike's picture shows the length of the housing for the brace is 8 1/2". We'll lay it out and cut it to be 8 5/8" or more so that any width brace would fit in and not bind up.
Here is a drawing showing the longer mortise and housing:
Here is a picture showing it in real wood:
Does that help?
Jim Rogers
