Wierd Kimball

[ANRPiano@aol.com]

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In a message dated 4/8/2005 7:22:40 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
draine@comcast.net writes:

There's  always some bad apples in the barrel. Especially when the 
(vintage '60s  thru early '80s) barrel is labeled "Kimball", "Kohler & 
Campbell", or  "Wurlitzer." If the customer puts in a DC system -- with 
a back cover --  they should find the piano achieving stability.
Otherwise, it's time for a  better piano.
Patrick Draine



Patrick,
 
Thanks for your reply.  While I agree with you, (and I have trashed  many 
such pianos from this era), I still am puzzled how the piano belly gained  so 
much energy in such a short period of time and with very little climate  change.  
You would expect a piano which has a 40 year history of wild pitch  swings 
like what has been observed so far to be breaking apart some where by  now.  But 
outside of the bass bridge beginning to split on the waste end, I  could find 
nothing structurally wrong.  Since it has a very fancy  cabinet and a 
surprisingly nice tone we would like to try to save the piano for  the customer.
 
Granted, economically speaking, this piano is not worthy of any extreme  
measures of life support, however I would like to learn something here.   Since I 
can't find an obvious reason for the problem, I can't point to the over  dried 
board, which is now swelled and broken itself from the ribs, (seen plenty  of 
these) I am curious as to the dynamics of what is going on.  I  understand 
how a standard spruce soundboard absorbs moisture, etc. but what  about a 
laminated board?  I would have assumed greater stability, am I  wrong?  Who knows 
how exactly Kimball put the soundboard together, but as a  general rule what 
would the expectations be for a laminated soundboard?   Spruce boards will move 
the most in the middle of the scale, do laminated  soundboards move across the 
entire scale like this one has?
 
Just trying to learn.
 
Andrew Remillard

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