This is an interesting discussion. Mike uses the long edge of the brace as the reference. I usually use the short edge. This results in a variation in how much "reveal" you get on the brace's small plumb and level faces. But it lets you determine the length of the mortise on the other stick, since the shoulder length on all the braces will be the same. You don't need to cut it extra-long to account for the worst-case brace size.



Edit: Forum shrunk my picture. If you load it from the source, it's more legible.

And to further the discussion, in the case of my roof braces, I had to lay one end out as daiku, shows. So, I had two of these in the building I am now working on, one had a natural sweep to it and the other was reasonably straight. I ended up snapping lines on both. One, I started to use the edge to lay out from but changed after discovering it had some band saw wave due to the fact it was knotty spruce, so I snapped lines. Interesting daiku's method I really never considered as a way to lay out brace stock, but just realized I have use it a few times in the past and yesterday.