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I want to make a bracket like this, but the longer, top line should be slightly thicker than the vertical, shorter lines. This seems surprisingly hard:

  • I cannot align the lines of different width using smart guides (and/or changing the stroke settings below), it's offset and if I match 'manually', resizing the thing changes the relative positions
  • Starting out with a square with stroke and no fill, I can easily get the result below (leaving out bottom, longer line), but fail at isolating the lines (without changing them) to change their widths individually.

This drives me crazy, I hope whoever reads this can empathize... any help or advice welcome

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You can't have one path with multiple stroke widths. You can create a stroke with varying width for one path, but it won't work for this.

Try this instead: Do Object > Expand to expand the stroke to a filled shape, then select two anchors and nudge them with the arrow keys, while counting how many you nudged it by. Repeat for the other side.

Example

enter image description here

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  • It could be done with stacking width points, similar to stacking gradient color stops for a hard edge. But.... it's really a nightmare to try and control the Width Tool that way, especially on corners. – Scott Jan 19 at 17:43
  • @Scott -there are many ways this could be done, but since the OP has already created a stroke, this is a simple method to continue from that point. – Billy Kerr Jan 19 at 17:45
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    I agree and +1'd already :) – Scott Jan 19 at 17:45
  • ow. I seemed completely off track with this one, thank you. So, the upshot is, this approach is much more feasible than multiple line objects, correct? +1 from me too, obviously – user2305193 Jan 19 at 19:13
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    @user2305193 This is just one simple method starting from a stroke. But there are also other possible methods. For example, using the pen tool and a grid, or doing a unite boolean operation on some rectangles, or a difference boolean operation, or using the shape builder tool, etc, etc. – Billy Kerr Jan 19 at 21:47

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