Soundboard Thoughts of Marilyn Monroe

[Danny Moore]

Delwin D Fandrich wrote:

> If I understand what you are talking about above, you were reusing the original ribs and once again placing the soundboard under compression.

Yes, that is what we did.

> This will hold for a while, but not as well or as long as did the original installation. The already damaged wood fiber simply will not be able to hold up under the additional compression.

Agreed.  This was done as an economy measure.  If the original was, say, 80 years old, we expected the rebuilt board to go about 20 or 1/4 of the original.  Also at 1/4 the price of a new board.  Note, we did this type of repair on instruments of "good" quality
but lesser value.  S&S, M&H, Bose, stuff like that always got new boards.

> If I understand the process Andre is talking about correctly, new ribs are pre-crowned and glued onto the soundboard in place of the original ribs.

Thanks for the clarification.  I "assumed" he was still building a compression board, but with new ribs.

> The original panel is now functioning as a simple two-dimensional wave carrying medium -- which is what it should have been doing from the beginning.

Are all of the better modern instruments built with pre-crowned ribs now?  I seem to recall that there is a debate about which type of construction is better.  Without provoking this debate, which do you (and anyone on the list) find to be best?

Danny Moore