Bracing a Top

 The bracing of a guitar top. I guess it is one of the favorite jobs for many luthiers. Myself included.
About a year ago I looked through my brace stock and decided to prepare some of it by splitting the pieces. A few days later I filled a cartboardbox with quite a bit of brace stock. All split in height and sawed on the bandsaw to roughly dimension them. It will last me for many years of builds.
Now every time I start bracing a top I pull out my box with the brace stock. I can look for exactly the material I want to match the top with and I only have to plane the sides to the final dimensions. It´s a real joy.

Since I started using split braces I was able to reduce the weight of my tops significantly!

The difference is noticable even if I am just droping a brace on my benchtop. A good brace has a remarkable tabtone itself I think. And there is another benefit from having a large batch of pre-prepared brace stock. I can listen and feel and choose exactly the material I am looking for to match the top. This can be a softer spruce to compensate for a very bright top or a very bright bracing material to get it even more shiny. There are loads of variables and options.