Hole in Soundboard for Damp Chaser cord

[Richard Brekne]

I believe that Ron Nossaman was simply making the point that drilling a 
hole through the soundboard in itself has no detrimental effects to the 
soundboards function or livespan. And, if done judiciously as he also 
pointed out, he is most certainly correct. The most obvious example is 
the nosebolt hole, placed in what might easily be considered one of the 
more vunerable areas of the soundboard.

That said, the argumentations and reasonings presented by the majority 
of techs here go to underline one of the main reasons I have for 
choosing not to drill through the soundboard.  Other techs will most 
certainly comment negatively to your customers about such a hole, and 
you are going to have to deal with that and all the headaches that 
potentially can accompany.

So, not being at all a neccessarry solution, I route the tubes and 
cables a different way. I dont particularilly like the look of a cord 
either, but  I find its a good idea to have it rather visable as just 
another reminder to owners that the DC unit is there and needs to be 
taken regard to.

An example of this is a comparison between my own installations and that 
of my main competitor here. He runs his cables out the bottom board, 
very very neat and very hidden. But at schools and institutions he has 
experienced on several occasions that cords have been destroyed exactly 
because some cleaning person, student, or other indivdual  had moved the 
instrument without insuring the cables safety.  I have not had such a 
call yet from any of my customers.  Making the cable obviously visable 
can be done neatly enough, and I think its probably a good idea as well.

Cheers
RicB



Andrew & Rebeca Anderson wrote:

> In my mind's view of things, through the soundboard is risky.  
> Potential problems have been enumerated previously.  I could add the 
> concern that it would also expose otherwise sealed (in some pianos) 
> wood to climate variations and be a starting place for buzzing cracks 
> etc.  I've not had trouble running a forstner through the bottom plank 
> and it isn't so directly connected to sound production and the cord 
> usually has plenty of room to go under and out un-obtrusively.
> Obviously some of you think otherwise and it has been working for 
> you.  I'm comfortable continuing to be cautious none-the-less. ;-)
>
> Andrew A.
> At 03:15 PM 12/5/2004 -0600, you wrote:
>