Knabe sloped/curved pinblock project

[Brian Trout]

Hi Terry,

The soundboard that's going into this piano was ordered from North Hudson
about 6 months ago, and has been in the 'hotbox' since then.  (Actually,
it's barely even heated at this point, trying to maintain an approximate
humidity level in the 30% range.  It's sort of like up in Brandon.  The RH
was pretty low already even out of the hotbox.)

I didn't make the soundboard panel, North Hudson put that together for us.
But they didn't do any tapering of the board from bellyrail to nose.  I'll
have to do any tapering or selective thinning myself.  The ribs did not come
attached to the board, but rather, we received a pile of 1-1/8" square
sticks of quartersawn Sitka spruce from which I'll make the ribs.

I don't have a soundboard press, but I do have a set of soundboard 'clamps'
that I made for the purpose of gluing on ribs.  They're my first generation
of clamps, so as you can probably imagine, there's a whole new generation of
soundboard clamps swirling around in my head with all of the improvements
and modifications...

I think I have enough clamps to glue in the soundboard minus about one
clamp.  (You always need just one more clamp...)

The only thing odd about this soundboard installation is that after the
soundboard is installed, there is a strip of oak about 1/4" thick that goes
all around the edge of inner rim, right on top of the soundboard, on edge.
I'll have to make that though, because when I took the old one off, it just
went to pieces.

It's been a fun project though.  And I'm glad I went to Brandon.  It feels
like my best project yet, and I'm much more focused.

Best wishes from Pennsylvania where it's been up around 80 degrees the past
couple of days!  Wow, what weather!

Brian T.
btrout@desupernet.net