my own Soundboard

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron Nossaman" <RNossaman@KSCABLE.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: January 13, 2002 9:28 PM
Subject: Re: my own Soundboard


> Board feet - now there's a concept that has passed deep into fantasy. What
is a
> lumber foot these days? Is it under 11" yet? I think 1" is under 5/8 now,
which
> makes the stuff twice as expensive as it even claims to be and you waste
over
> half of that (assuming it's all usable, which is unlikely just from
differing
> grain densities even if all the planks were perfect) in trimmings,
shavings,
> and sawdust. What (real) thicknesses can spruce be gotten in?  If you
could get
> real 1" thick stock, it could be resawn and planed with theoretically less
> waste but more labor. It would be an interesting project, but it would
take a
> bunch of panels to pay for the R&D, tooling, and sorting stockpile. It
would
> also be hard not to be a total nuisance bragging on it to everyone you
know if
> you pulled it off and made a nice panel. Bragging rights have to be worth
> something too.


When buying soundboard spruce a board/foot is still a board/foot. One
problem has been getting the material in the desired thickness. We would
prefer 10 to 11 mm rough-cut stock since our boards are never more than 8 mm
thick and 1 to 1.5 mm off of each side should be enough trim through the
planer/sander to smooth things out. Unfortunately, one of our previous
suppliers only processed stock at 16 mm. That was what their major customers
wanted. Apparently they can through the boards in the general direction of
the press, hog huge amounts of wood off the top and bottom of the panel and
end up with a soundboard. Of course, it also wastes huge amounts of a
rapidly disappearing recourse, but there should be (might be) enough to last
out our lifetimes so who cares?

In theory you should be able to get spruce (or any wood, for that) in any
thickness you want. You just have to be prepared to buy enough at one time.
I'm considering asking NwSW to run a cant or two through their bandmill at
11 mm and see what we end up with.

Del