Reading a Board

[David Skolnik]

Bill-
Just curious how you are measuring downbearing, ?

David Skolnik


At 12:26 AM 10/4/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Dear List,
>
>I have a 110 -year-old B with a 35 year old board (NY: Camilleiri? A&C?), 
>with whose voicing I've hit the "wall". This is the main concert piano for 
>one of my summer music programs, and the piano lives over the winter in 
>the uninsulated concert shed. I believe (based on 8 years of taking care 
>of this piano) that I've hit on the best musical use of the resonance in 
>that board, but still the 5th and 6th octaves never balance satisfactorily 
>with the rest of the piano. (35 y.o. board & block, 15 y.o. stringing, and 
>6 years ago, I put new action parts - NY hammers. This summer I did sell 
>them Pianotek's turnbuckle brace.)
>
>Underneath, the crown has collapsed. I've got an M-shaped board: the 
>bridge has pressed a downwards ridge into the soundboard, all along the 
>treble bridge, except when the bass bridge stands behind it (between ribs 
>#2-5 counting from the bass corner). Here the long bridge has crown under 
>it, and it's the bass bridge which furrows the board. The board BTW, 
>doesn't show compression ridges.
>
>On top, there's respectable downbearing *and* front bearing throughout 
>(the only exception to front bearing is at the mid-treble break where 
>front bearing disappears, but downbearing is still respectable.
>
>Having listened to some fine new factory fresh Bs at Marlboro this summer, 
>this board's resonance needs to be better. Based on the crown readings, 
>I'd tend to say that we shouldn't expect anything better from this board.
>
>That judgement call aside, it's still interesting that things should look 
>so good from the top side. I know when a crown has reversed and bridges 
>have rolled that such a board can give false positives  on downbearing. 
>But I would expect that to be accompanied by badly negative front bearing. 
>Which is not the case here.
>
>Bill Ballard RPT
>NH Chapter, P.T.G.
>
>"Trust me, you've got all the equipment, You just need to read the manual"
>     ...........Reese Witherspoon in "Legally Blonde"
>+++++++++++++++++++++
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