Another way to do it is to start with curved stock. We took some large curved branches and put them on the sawmill and cut two slabs out of it to make book matched curved pieces 3 1/8" thick. Then laid out the brace tenons on the curved stock and cut the mortises to the length of the tenons.
To clean up the bark edges we also used a draw knife and a spoke shave.
Good luck with your project.
Jim Rogers
