Soundboards

[Farrell]

Materials for soundboards. That interests me. I read somewhere about a guy
that made one out of (I think) Douglas Fir - maybe Nick Gravagne (maybe
not!) and said it sounded great.

The six-foot kimball likely sounds good because Kimball happened to get a
decent shape/downbearing/glue joint to the board, and it is ALOT bigger than
those plywood spinets & consoles (I see alot of them and do not notice much
difference between them & solid spruce at that size).

Terry Farrell
Piano Tuning & Service
Tampa, Florida
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com

----- Original Message -----
From: <ANRPiano@AOL.COM>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2000 1:14 AM
Subject: Soundboards


> Thought I'd start a new thread.
>
> The other day I tuned a Kimball circa 1950, approx. 6' grand.  Not a bad
> sounding piano if I do say so myself since I rebuilt it about 4 years ago.
> (Just a new pinblock and strings.)  What I find most intriguing is the
> soundboard is plywood.  I have seen laminate soundboards in all sorts of
> truly horrible spinets and consoles, but I don't ever remember one
sounding
> so well.
>
> If my memory serves me correctly, Del mentioned laminate soundboards as a
> theoretically intriguing area some time ago in a Journal article.  Also
(if
> memory will serve me twice in one night) Mr. Birkett once said something
to
> the effect that a soundboard could be made out of nearly any material if
the
> maker knew what they were doing.
>
> I apologize to both gentleman in advance if I miss quoted or summarized
> anything they may or may not have said.  The question still stands:  what
> about the use of alternative materials in soundboards and what
construction
> aspects may have allowed this Kimball to sound so much better than other
> similarly constructed pianos?
>
> Andrew Remillard
>