Hi Eric, You didn't specify which Ron, so you may hear from all of us on this one. Up front, let me say that I don't know anything about violins specifically, since I'm a piano technician and rebuilder. That said, your comment that the Stradivari weren't all that well thought of when they were new is interesting. I hadn't heard that before. I have found what Del mentioned about new soundboards settling down in the first six months or year to be true, and I build my boards a little stiff too, anticipating the effect. Perhaps something similar really does happen in violins. An interesting possibility. > I read one >study that attributed the great sound to Stradivari's recipe for varnish and >the 60 layers that were painstakingly applied then rubbed off. It was the >interaction between the varnish and the spruce over 300 years that caused the >acoustic superiority of the Strad. Yes, everyone seems to like the magic varnish theory. I also read a report from a guy who set out to debunk the magic varnish belief by experimenting on cheap violins to see what he could learn. He bought a truckload of cheapo imported violin shaped objects and, using what he could learn from violin experts, took them apart and started scraping, recontouring, tapping, listening, refining, testing, and generally trying everything he could think of. As a result, he was turning "name on request" quality instruments into violins producing a $50,000 sound, made from a $30 special with a day's work and finished with a coat or two of hardware store varnish. I like this story better. >If one looks at the spruce used in soundboards, the acoustic resonance is >richer in those boards that have reached an ideal age. Ah yes, this would be the magic resonant spruce theory. Also very popular. In a piano soundboard, you don't want resonance if you can avoid it (which you can't altogether). You want the assembly to respond to the strings, converting the energy moving from finger to key to wip to hammer to string to bridge soundboard assembly into sound without adding it's own resonant responses. You want a material that's light, stiff, with a rapid springback recovery, and not too much internal friction. Spruce works very well, but other materials can too. From there on, the acoustic response of the assembly is determined by the rib scale, panel thickness, bridges, string scale, bearing, etc. >Every tree is >different. Every board is different. I think that in piano's, by the time >the board has reached it's ideal age, it many times has already lost it's >crown. Yes, that's probably true, even when it's ideal age is six months to a year. >Secret varnish recipies and their application have been handed down >through the generations of piano builders, but using new growth lumber (only >40 - 50 years old) vs. the old growth lumber (100-300 years old) makes quite >a bit of difference. Take a board of spruce that's already aged 150 years, >add the best recipe for varnishing the board, and you have the materials that >make up the finest instruments produced today (Hamburg Steinway, Bosendorfer, >Bechstein, Seiler, etc...). You're talking about the age and rate of growth of the tree from which the lumber is cut here, not aged spruce lumber. Big difference. The old growth stuff was indeed very nice and uniform, and we could still be getting it here if forest management had been more profitable than clear cutting these last 200 years. >So on to the questions. Violins have between 40 and 80 coats of varnish that >are hand-applied which in turn determines the ultimate resonance of the wood. I can't imagine what benefit could come from applying 80 coats of varnish and wiping them off, other than the violin becoming very large and very quiet if they were allowed to build. > How many coats of varnish are used on a performance piano? In my case, none. I spray a couple of coats of lacquer on both sides of the board. I don't care to load the board down with any unnecessary weight if I can avoid it. >Has a piano >soundboard ever been produced that uses the traditional methods used to >varnish violins (apply, rub-off, repeat)? Almost certainly. Someone somewhere has surely done it, but I haven't heard who or where. > Does the idea that it's the >combination of the wood and the varnish that ultimately determines the >resonance of the soundboard (besides the fitting and installation) hold any >water? Yes, in that it's possible to wreck a good design with poor materials choice, but it's pretty likely that a good design and approach using "lesser" quality materials will sound better for longer than a bad design using the "best" materials available. >I appreciate your interest and hope the violin analogy hasn't left me open >for too many e-barbs! > >thanks, >Eric Frankson >Family Music Centers >Las Vegas, NV Ron N
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC