>Was that a solid bridge root with a ship-lap joint, or vertically laminated? Solid, why? >I've also been curious through this thread, about the new Steinways you've >examined and found no crown in the mid-treble. These were pianos you were >called in on presumably because of just the tonal problem mentioned in >Terry's initial thread. Pianos new enough to convince you that they let >the factory with deformed boards. These are new pianos I've tuned for dealers, either on the dealer's floor, at sales events, or in customers' homes. These are not necessarily pianos with any specific complaint I was called to alleviate, though some were. I don't see that it matters a whole lot if the soundboard dies in the factory, in the truck on the way to the dealer, or in the customer's home between the time of delivery and the tuning. This shouldn't be happening at all, in my opinion. >How many were these? Dozens, not hundreds. >And how many new Steinway pianos have you been called in to examine >because of perfectly fine tone, in which you found the required crown. Now that you mention it, I don't recall ever being called in to examine a piano because of perfectly fine tone. How many times has this happened to you? In the last 25 years or so, I have checked bearing and crown on a lot of pianos (hundreds, not dozens), both quite acceptable, and quite wretched sounding. The acceptable sounding pianos are much more likely to have adequate bearing and crown. A factor in this tone/crown/bearing evaluation that is almost universally ignored is the volume level and scale area of the testing. Yes, but isn't that bass great? In the killer octave (wherever), tone is often quite acceptable at low to moderate levels. At higher attack levels, it falls apart. As the piano ages and the board deteriorates, the play level at which the tone falls apart drops. It also obviously changes with seasonal humidity changes. I find this to be one useful indicator of the condition of the soundboard. >Or if this is too small a sample (being maybe less than one), compared to >Steinway's annual output. No Bill, it's somewhat more than less than one. How is it that you apparently aren't experiencing these problems? Do all (both?) of the Steinways you service sound perfect? How many pianos have you checked crown and bearing on, and what correlations have you made between these measurements and tone production? >This ratio would answer whether the the disappearance of crown is >system-wide and due to a procedural decision from the engineering >department, or simply as John suggests, from garden variety >"out-of-tolerance" work on the floor. > >I'm also glad to see John back on the list. > >Bill Ballard RPT Were all those hours of discussion about the drawbacks of compression crowning soundboards for nothing? It's essentially a design problem. This sort of thing is inherent in the production of compression crowned soundboards. John mentions "contouring" ribs, which I take to mean that he is machining a crown into them and building rib crowned soundboards. Please correct me if I'm wrong. If that is indeed the case, then what he is calling craftsmanship is actually re-engineering the design of the original product. Ron N
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