Isaac, Your post is interesting; this is what I was trying to get at in my original post concerning restoring of crown in old soundboards in which I mentioned that a 100 year old Steinway had been sent back to the factory in Hamburg for restoration and they shimmed the soundboard instead of replacing it. I spoke to the dealer yesterday who has this piano and he said that in the 30 years that he has been in the trade he has found that retaining the original soundboard leads to far better results than installing a new one. Apparently Steinway themselves seem to think so as well. The original board in this particular piano had about 50 cracks in it and you could see the floor through them. It now sounds much better than a brand new Steinway (same model) standing right next to it on the showroom floor. Regards Alan Forsyth Edinburgh
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