Soundboard Flat Area

[Farrell]

I would like to thank Ron N. for opening my eyes regarding evaluating
crown/downbearing on a soundboard in ALL areas of the board. I service a S&S
B at a small nonprofit music hall. 1949, got new hammers and strings maybe
10+ years ago. Plays like a truck, needs lots of work. Always takes me a
long time to tune - not a clear sounding string on the piano.

I will be submitting a proposal to them for rebuilding and wanted to
evaluate the soundboard. I checked downbearing with my little three point
brass thingee (sorry Ron, the front foot broke off my bubble gauge
recently - I would have used that to get some real numbers) and found quite
decent downbearing everywhere but a small octave centered just to the tenor
side of the tenor/treble break. That area had positive downbearing, but just
barely observable. Crawled under the piano with my trusty string. (Don't you
just hate those stage/piano trucks when you want to crawl under a piano -
ouch!) Several areas in bass/tenor region - nice crown - good 1/8" or so -
no dip at bass bridge (before Ron's post about checking ALL over the
soundboard I might have stopped there because the rest of the board is hard
to get to with all the beams, etc.). Treble/hi treble area - pretty good,
just a tad of crown - could just see a little separation of string from
board in middle (with good downbearing on top, seemed OK in this area). Then
I checked the area where there was minimal downbearing - the board actually
had just a minute amount of NEGATIVE crown. This area was totally under all
the beams, bells, and little fake-o cut-off bars (what is that goofy little
piece of softwood tacked to the bottom side of ribs where you might expect
to find a cut-off bar anyway?) and was real hard to get to. But I am glad I
did because now I THINK I know something about the board that I might not
otherwise.

Now my question. This is clearly the original board. No cracks, 52 years
old, little sunk spot in middle. In my opinion, if they want this piano to
be like new (or hopefully better than new) again, they need a new board.
Agree?

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