Soundboard Thoughts-Mehlin

[Horace Greeley]

Greg,

At 11:31 AM 12/10/97 -0600, you wrote:
>A few years ago I did some action work on a Mehlin 5' 4" baby grand with the
>slanted soundboard and violin type bridge (bass bridge was tall and had oval
>holes in the middle) and this piano just "sang".  Don't remember how old it
>was but I think it was made in the 30's or 40's maybe. It sounded "big",
>more like a 6 footer...

I'm pretty sure that that Mehlin would have been older than that.  Truly
wonderful pianos.  Tall, stately bridges, beautiful woodworking.  I
no longer have my notes from several of those, but I do seem to remember
a slightly lower tension scale.  Several had the plate poured in a
very complex, compound curve that was especially noticable
throughout the pin wells.

The boards, also, seemed thinner, with more ribs that
had smaller crossections.

Marvelous instruments.

Best.

Horace




>
>Regards,
>Greg Torres
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Danny Moore <danmoore@ih2000.net>
>To: pianotech@ptg.org <pianotech@ptg.org>
>Date: Tuesday, December 09, 1997 5:05 AM
>Subject: Re: Soundboard Thoughts
>
>
>(snipped)
>
>
>>Have you or anyone else studied Paul G. Mehlin's ideas?  I've always
>thought that he
>>had been a violin maker in Germany, but got into piano design &
>manufacturing when
>>he came to the U.S.  I've only seen one Mehlin 9 ft. concert grand, but it
>did, in
>>fact, have the slanting soundboard and narrower treble bridge.  It also had
>a hole
>>in the sound board at end of the bass bridge.  We could never figure out if
>it was
>>supposed to be a "tone hole" like on a violin, or perhaps a drain since the
>board
>>was slanted.  Unfortunately, the piano was in pretty bad shape - it sounded
>>terrible!  Nobody had the guts to put out the money to rebuild it for fear
>that,
>>because of the odd design, it would still sound terrible.
>
>
>
>
Horace Greeley

Systems Analyst/Engineer
Controller's Office
Stanford University

email: hgreeley@leland.stanford.edu
voice mail: 650.725.9062
fax: 650.725.8014