I am ready to have some red oak sawn up for braces and I,m not sure how to tell my sawyer to cut them. I have heard to stay away from the pith because sometimes it is soft. Should I center cut, free of heart, or just flat saw to the corect width and then saw to the corect height ??? Any advice would be appreciated, Thanks John...

John: If the heart/pith is in the brace it's more likely to crack or check, as it's such a small timber and easier to air dry. If your braces have the dimension of 3 1/8" x 5", I wouldn't box the heart. My personal rule is to 'box heart' timbers starting at 5" thick and thicker, by 5" wide and wider both dimensions. I’ve found and been told that 4” and smaller timbers don’t need to be boxed heart. As only one dimension is 5", you could get away with not boxing the heart. I'm sure others will give you additional advice on this subject. And I’d be interested in their advice also. Good luck, with your project. Jim

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

Jim and Ken, I have six books written by the T/F Gurus, but there are some things that they just don't tell you. As always, thank you for your help and advice, John...