TIMBEAL, thank you as well for the great response. It's funny that you mentioned Sobon's book because that's the first place I checked before I posted my original question. The illustration of the English tying joint provided in the book does not include a knee brace. I didn't study the actual raising pictures in the book, but the detailed "schematic" on pages 40-43 are definitely sans brace. But then again, his intention was probably only to highlight the specifics of the joint.

PS, I just checked a couple of the photos in the book adjacent to the ETJ schematics and they appear to be ETJ's atop straight posts with knee braces.

For the record, braces on straight posts look okay to me, but I'm still not fond of them on jowled posts. Either way, they're a necessity most of the time.


Thanks again to all.