poxy on soundboards and seminar in Bruxelles

[Farrell]

I'm not speaking for anyone but myself, but I'll take a stab at this one.
Two things come to mind.

First is predictability. The properties of a new piece of spruce are
predictable within a known range. These characteristics are then used to
design a soundboard - whether it be from empirical information, engineering
and math, or a combination of the two. With a 100-year-old soundboard panel,
the property range, I'm quite sure, would be much broader because
compression damage would presumably change some of the properties. This is
germane if the soundboard design incorporates some reliance on compression
for crown formation. So, perhaps one could say that a re-crowned soundboards
might have more diverse personality than new soundboards.

When I build one of the six soundboards per year that I do, I want to know
how it will sound with as much certainty as is possible. If I were building
5,000+++ pianos a year, I might look forward to the concept of diverse piano
personality.

The second thing is that the concept of a re-crowned panel sounding and
performing similar to a new panel likely incorporates building a rib-crowned
soundboard with little or no compression in the panel. With such a
soundboard my understanding is that the panel's primary (only?) function is
to form a barrier to air, such that as the soundboard vibrates, it moves
air. So whether it is a new panel or an old one, may not make a whole lot of
difference.

But where is the advantage to using an old panel? Except for marketing of
course. And of course, one would have to be wanting to restore the piano to
its original design if the old panel is used - oops, but then if one builds
a rib-crowned board with the original panel, then maybe the piano is not
true to its original design. So as long as you are changing the
design....................    ;-)

Terry Farrell

Richard wrote:

"such a panel
should sound and perform virtually identical to a new panel similarilly
rib crowned... and its easy enough to find that series of posts between
him and I.  I reacted immediatly to the claim that on the one hand you
had this  "compression damage" thing that virtually rendered the panel
useless, then on the other hand this same useless peice of wood could be
rib-crowned and made to function just like a new rib crowned board."

> Long discussion, lots of stuff back and forth on this in the archieves
> "Damage at cellular level" is like a real can of worms and in reality
> can just as easily interpreted in this application as a positve more
> then a negative.  The fact that it is 100 years old is also a positive
> in many minds. Making pianos is simply not just a matter of engineering
> principles and mathematics... in fact these tools are far less useful
> then many here would like to have it.  They become totally useless in my
> mind, when they define away any musicality that does not conform to
> their parameters.
>
> How does the piano sound, how long can it last... that is in the end the
> primary concern.  Re-ribbing old panels is a fairly common proceedure
> over here, and I can assure you they sound and perform quite well...
> despite whatever concerns about the lack of some stiffness or other
> presumed negatives based on whatever understanding of relavant
> engineering principles these concerns stem from.
>
> Heck... even Del a few years back  stated straight out that such a panel
> should sound and perform virtually identical to a new panel similarilly
> rib crowned... and its easy enough to find that series of posts between
> him and I.  I reacted immediatly to the claim that on the one hand you
> had this  "compression damage" thing that virtually rendered the panel
> useless, then on the other hand this same useless peice of wood could be
> rib-crowned and made to function just like a new rib crowned board.  I
> still dont see that a clear explaination to that seeming contradiction
> was ever supplied... but clearly that must be because of  some lack of
> understanding on my part.
>
> Cheers
> RicB
>
> David Love wrote:
>
> >Why would you trouble yourself to take the ribs off a panel that has
> >damage at the cellular level and then use it again with new ribs.
> >Especially in the upper end of the piano where much of the stiffness is
> >provided by the panel and not the ribs, this seems like folly to me.
> >That panel you are trying to salvage bears no resemblance to the panel
> >that was originally installed once it's gone through 100 years of
> >expansion and contraction.
> >
> >David Love
> >davidlovepianos@comcast.net
> >
> >
> >
>
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