Building brace

Claim 1

An elongated, relatively thin steel brace having both substantial compressive and tensile strengths for use in a building having a basic wall composed of vertically disposed spaced apart wood studs joined by a horizontal wooden bottom plate and a horizontal wooden top plate and capable of being carried and handled by a person without substantial bending, and with the brace intended for attachment to the basic wall in a diagonal manner from the top plate, across a plurality of the vertical studs to the bottom plate without requiring notching of the top and bottom plates or the intermediately disposed vertical studs, said elongated brace comprising relatively flat portions at each end thereof with a plurality of holes therethrough to permit nailing of the flat end portions to the spaced apart top and bottom plates without any wood notching, said brace having a plurality of first portions disposed in spaced apart relationship longitudinally of said brace and between the flat ends for disposition of said first portions between the vertically disposed studs, stiffening ribs in each of said first portions, said ribs disposed generally longitudinally of the brace and projecting in one direction from the plane of said brace for disposition inwardly between the studs leaving the outside thereof generally flat and lying in the same plane as the outer plane surface of the studs, said ribs projecting a distance from the plane of said brace sufficient to substantially prevent compressive bending of said first portions, and said brace having other intermediate portions extending between the ends of said first portions for abutting each of the studs which the brace crosses, said intermediate portions being equal in number to the number of studs intended to be crossed by said brace, said intermediate portions being shaped in transverse cross section to render said intermediate portions in cooperation with said first portions and said flat end portions sufficiently stiff to permit carrying of said brace by a person without substantial bending and further to enable said intermediate portions to engage said studs in a substantially flat condition when said brace is secured to said basic wall with the ribs of said first portions extending inwardly of a plane including the outer edges of said basic wall, said portions having a plurality of nail holes provided therein, said intermediate portions of the brace shaped with extremely shallow stiffening ribs at the longitudinal side edges of said intermediate portions, said shallow stiffening ribs projecting in the same direction as said ribs of said first portions, said intermediate portions of said brace being curvilinear in cross section about the longitudinal axis of said brace to thereby define the extremely shallow side edge stiffening ribs.