Quick and dirty braces

If a brace is needed to temporarily support something, try this method:

If you are using a 2x4 or whatever, just try to get some rough measurements of what will work.  Think about a triangle.  Say you need to support something that is approximately 1'-0" horizontally away from your support  point, but also about 5'-0" up vertically.

Now, this would a right triangle, with legs of 1 and 5 (purposefully left the units off now.. it doesn't matter about the scale).  We want to know the bevel that should be cut on top.

A right triangle of legs 5 and 5 would have a bevel of 45 degrees at each end (the brace is the hypotenuse).  Thus, a right triangle with legs of 1 and 5 would be 1/5 of the 5 and 5 triangle's angle

45 x (1/5) = 9 degrees.

Put a bevel of 9 degrees on it.  It fits perfect.  I just made that up on the spot.  I plan to use it from now on.