Soundboard Thoughts

[Ron Nossaman]

Hi Susan,

Wow! You have a positive genius for complicating things. Have you ever
worked for the Government? %-) 

Rib test, yep - easy enough to try, but if a board is to be replaced anyway
how much would it tell you? It's worth a try, though, serendipity is always
cheerfully accepted. 

Re weirder options: Watch out! You're way past the capabilities of a Union
production shop. Engineers can (and do) design stuff that can't be built,
but we mortals have to stick to stuff that's reproducible and serviceable.
Other than that, why not? I'm just sort of simple minded and like the more
straightforward stuff if I can convince myself that it seems to work. In my
case, the road from concept to usable item when making tools or jigs has
always consisted of relentlessly chopping out the grandiose stuff and
simplifying. I'm betting there's a fairly simple, elegant fix for most of
these problems.  


About the side curve: Was the curve smaller back before sopranos were bred
for bulk? Were sopranos ever smaller? Help us out here Les. What the heck IS
that for?


Re: "Sorry Horace <g>", Sorry Horace <G>2

Sure beats deleting gripes huh? Ron



At 06:23 PM 12/8/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Still interesting, Ron.
>
>What I was thinking was that it would be dead easy to test the effect of
>differing rib contours in the "killer" area, for anyone who installs
>soundboards. Just take the tired old soundboard they are about to replace,
>and use a router and/or plane to thin one side, with the strings still on
>and at pitch. Possibly they could add mass to the other side as well, by
>gluing or clamping something to those ribs. They could even test thinning
>the front on one board and thinning the rear area on another, and see which
>seemed more effective in changing the tone. (If _either_ made any difference!)
>
>One could think about weirder options, too, such as not attaching the board
>to the belly in the problem portion, possibly even routing it out some
>clearance, and seeing if the "cantilever" made any difference in freeing it.
>Or one could support it with narrow feet, like a violin bridge, with room to
>vibrate in between them.
>
>Possibly clearance might give it some room to wander during humidity
>challenges, too, so it wouldn't crush and flatten as much.
>
>Thinking about torque, I started to wonder about the shape of the piano.
>There is the curve, which surely is there for some reason other than
>providing a cosy spot for a soprano to stand. If I remember (Les could help
>here!) George Stecks had a big wide end. Did some of the older pianos have a
>straighter edge? I wonder what would happen if the rear area were made more
>extensive and better supported, and the soundboard were a lot freer and more
>lightly supported from the cutoff bar you were talking about, all the way to
>the right end. As the board narrowed at the treble end, perhaps enough
>support might be provided by the rim, so the area wasn't pinched between the
>rim and the belly. 
>
>I've never been at all happy with the tone and clarity in octave 7, in any
>piano. 
>
>Still fun. Sorry, Horace <g>
>
>Susan
>------------------------------------------------------------

 Ron Nossaman