Hello, John, or anyone who can help me. I like to have some thoughts on an IBACH grand 1.90 m this one was build in 1919 . A friend had put new strings on it and the sound seems a little short and constrained in the medium. The board is well shaped, but I noticed he allows for a lot of load (down bearing) on the basses. What can you tell me about the soundboard of these fine instruments. is it a bit stiff, asking for a good load, or is it more flexible and need a lighter one ? At first see, the construction seems medium stiffness. but on the stiff side, may be the hammers are not heavy enough too (the action is very light now) this will may be be the first piano where I will try to insert lead in the hammers ( I've never try that in real size). I am unsure too on how the big load on the basses can interfere to the medium and if an effect is easily noticeable. As the extreme bass is OK with a little DB, the first plain seems to be OK too, but things begin to be thinner when going higher to octave 4 in the piano, the treble is nice enough I find. My friend computed the new strings tension (he told me accordingly to Klaus Fenner, but I am really not sure he take Ih in account, may be there is a problem there too) JD, do you have an original scaling from this model, so I could try to understand how it looks ? I may regulate and voice the piano so we can experiment to have less load before going farther. The long bridge is very cantered in the medium with a somewhat long strings backlenght in the medium. When I restring a piano, (that is not so often ), I always try to understand how much the soundboard is constrained by mesuring the apparent DB and crown before un-stringing, then again after the strings are down. That way I can try to understand if more or less load could be of some benefit, and sometime, I've seen a piano with too much load which sound better after a little less down bearing was allowed. But I may admit I don't have a real method to evaluate things . Could the drumming of the board give some idea too ? Thanks for your thoughts
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