Soundboard grain angle

[John Delacour]

At 11:26 AM -0800 12/4/01, Delwin D Fandrich wrote:

>  we
>might as well forget the function of the arch in the real world piano. Even
>a highly crowned board has so little once it's loaded by string down force
>any effect the arch might contribute is lost in the compliance of the wood.

I've re-read this a few times to try and make sense of it.  I can see 
that the wood of a new board is bound to have multiple places or 
"high points" in its internal structure where the first use of the 
arch is going to result in a crushing of the material, but once this 
has happened and the board has to that extent "complied" and settled 
I see no further compliance in the wood and the board will return to 
the settled unloaded height time and time again.

>You are correct, of course, the treble
>would be much more efficient if the grain angle were 90º to the bellyrail.
>Less so in the low bass, however, where the with-grain stiffness would even
>further lock down the bass bridge. Unless we are floating the bass and then
>it won't really matter much.

The board is floated on all pianos I've seen with the grain running 
across the piano, simply because they've all been straight strung, 
and that affects the direction of the bass bridge too, of course, 
with or without apron.

Two weeks ago I made some strings for a 6'0" Collard and Collard that 
a local man was restoring and asked him to let me know when they were 
on because I wanted to hear the results in such a short s/s grand. 
The piano had a few interesting features that made the trip worth 
while.  Not only did my strings sound well right to the bottom but 
the tenor and mid range were also extremely sweet and long-lasting. 
The board was at 90° to the straight side.  I was not able to judge 
the treble owing to poor tuning, but it was certainly not bad.  C&C 
is a make I avoid because of its really lousy actions with shocking 
geometry, but the sound of them gave them a good share of the 
international market at one time.

>I have been refining the radial-dispersion rib configuration over 
>the years and am now fairly comfortable with it as well.

You would be interested to see how Brinsmead did this and to hear the 
effect, which is almost unique.  The soundboard is so responsive that 
the load pedal has the effect of opening the swell on an organ.  This 
is very rare and gives the player a whole ne vista of expressive 
possibilities.

JD