Hi Sarah Intersting post as usual. I find much that harmonizes with my own thinking in it. Especially this last paragraph which I include below. It is indeed hard to argue the fact that there are quite obviously several different ways of going about this whole SB problem, and equally difficult to argue the fact that in the hands of a competant builder, each can perform wonderfully... each in their own distinctive way. I enjoy the heck out of all the enlightening discussion that describes some of the mechanics, or at least some of what is thought to be the mechanics of the different approaches. But, like David Love, I am far less interested in hearing about who thinks this or that method is best. Pros and Cons there are... which means just that. There is always a trade off. Hybrid ??... I suggested something of a hybrid some while back...and got promptly scoffed at for it here... but to repeat just for your edification, I suggested inserting a strip of soundboard material, cut to match the upper flange of each rib, between the rib and soundboard... as a kind of compression buffer. One would dry the panel out as usual in a CC board, and dry out the buffer material to only about 6 % MC. Glue the ribs and buffer material together (grain in buffer material in the same direction as the soundboard) and then the assembled buffered ribs to the panel and let the whole thing take on moisture. Seemed like a reasonable enough idea to at least try out. I did exactly this with a few peices of left over material from the old Knudsen Piano factory... and it crowned nicely enough. Tho I susppose I should have glued the thing to some kind of a simulated rim and put the thing under compression to see what would happen... maybe next time. The idea was simply to provide a bit more longitudinal elastisicity in the ribs themselves. I still beleive there is some, which you seem to aggree with, and that the tension that must be present in the rib strains against any increase in compression from the panel... effectively supporting crown. I find no real conflict between this and the point that the ribs actually do resist being bent... essentially fighting crown in a completly different sense. Cheers RicB Personally, I'm a big fan of the expressiveness of the American Golden Age pianos, and perhaps some of the expressiveness in these pianos derives from the inefficiencies of the CC board. On the other hand, it's hard to argue against the longevity, stability, and treble response properties of an RC/S board. It's equally hard to argue against the smooth, brooding qualities of one of Ron Overs' beautiful pianos! It would be very interesting if someone were to experiment with a hybrid board, combining the properties of CC and RC/S. (Would that even be possible? Perhaps RC/S in the treble end and CC elsewhere? Perhaps a split board, joined at the rib???) Or how about a different sort of board entirely? How about a violin-like board that has its crown milled/sculpted into the wood like a very shallow bowl, lightly supported/stabilized with smaller, shaped ribs? How about a RC/S board with an electromagnetic low-pass damping device that would slowly dissipate higher partials? So many fun possibilities! Fascinating stuff! :-) Peace, Sarah
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