>Ron & Del: >Perhaps a diagram of your rib layout versus the standard S&S layout >would help those of us having a hard time visualizing the standard v. >ideal layout. >Patrick No, it really wouldn't help a bit. The differences include string scales and bridge changes, rim bracing, soundboard thickness, grain angle, crowning methods, crown heights, bearing loads, load distributions and resulting soundboard deflections, number of ribs, lengths of ribs, cross sectional dimensions of ribs, grain angles, and resulting soundboard stiffness and mass in different points of the scale. It isn't any one thing, but a whole lot of interdependent things that make soundboards efficient, or not, to varying degrees. My point is that the different results rebuilders get from one set of hammers to the other is only partially because of any differences in the hammers. A much larger part of the equation than many of us realize is the soundboard assembly. The fact that one rebuilder finds it necessary to lacquer a set of hammers while another does not with an identical set, and may even be needling them down to soften them further, isn't necessarily the difference in personal taste in tone production. Nor does it mean that the tech who uses the soft hammers is hardening them by some other means than lacquer. He's just using them in a different set of system dynamics than the other guy. You can put a set of very hard hammers on just about anything and get a very similar sound from just about everything. Same hammer, same result. A soft resilient hammer can sound like a sweat sock on a stick in one piano, and knock your socks off in another. Same hammer, vastly different results. Why? The rebuilder will usually conclude that the softer hammers are wildly erratic in "quality" when he gets such different results from successive hammer jobs, and will either plan on a lot of juicing from here on out, or switch to a harder hammer for more predictable uniformity. When a rebuilder is working with the original board, or a replacement made to the original design, he has to try to chose a set of hammers that will give the best performance obtainable by whatever voicing methods he has available, within the capabilities and limitations the soundboard imposes. So does the guy building a more efficient soundboard, but he finds he needs a softer hammer. Ron N
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