Down-Bearing for Old Board /AND YET MORE!

[Ron Nossaman]

> Use of the infamous Kansas staightedge is a very helpful
>diagnostic tool.  Thanks Ron N.   By the way you answer this one, how much
>bearing does a  flat board need /get.  After all many flat boards(or Worse)
>are restrung every day in America.

In my world a flat board is a dead board. For the last twenty years, I've
been fore square against lowering plates (etc) to get bearing on a bridge
without regard to the condition of the soundboard. One might actually
improve the sound of the piano by stacking on the bearing (the new strings
didn't hurt either), but when the result of this practice results in a
reverse crown (in a "conventional" assembly) it will be a temporary
improvement. Sure, the board's impedance is raised as a result, but it's
almost entirely from panel compression, and a few high/low humidity swings
will add enough more compression set to the panel to put it back near where
it was in sound production. I have tuned many many pianos that were rebuilt
with original boards, and find a high percentage of them sound reasonably
good in the summer, and as wretched as ever in the dry winter. New pianos
too, for that matter, but that's something else again. I think that flat
boards are strung every day primarily because of ignorance as to how the
things work in the first place. I hear from other rebuilders - "I don't
know what's wrong with it." "It has plenty of bearing and I've doped the
heck out of the hammers". When asked about crown, they either have no idea,
or just measured under the longest rib - where the problems almost never
are. Many times, I've gotten requests to try to voice out or otherwise fix
tonal problems in recently rebuilt pianos. Way too many times, I've had to
tell piano owners that most of the money they spent on that rebuild five
years ago was wasted because the work was done over a dead soundboard. I
don't much enjoy that, so I make a real attempt not to add to the problem.
There is a whole lot of rebuild work I don't get because of this, because
there's always someone else who will give them better news and a lower
price - usually 2/3 the price for 1/2 the work. 

Think you might have nicked a nerve with that one?


Ron N