Dear Mr. Nossaman.....( Was, "Why wide, flat ribs.....? )

[David Love]

It's unfortunate that this conversation often turns into an us against them
discussion.  I think it's important to understand how this all came about
and why.  Everyone wants to build a soundboard that produces good, reliable
tone and in a predictable way.  If you are a large company that builds, say,
3000 pianos a year, don't want to change the way you've done things for 150
years, and can afford to have so many less than stellar outcomes because of
clever "personality" marketing, or an otherwise solid reputation, you may
not have to worry about it.  But if you are a small rebuilder doing 10 - 20
pianos a year, you don't have that luxury.  Each piano means a lot more and
less than stellar outcomes or even unpredictable results don't help your
cause.  I don't guess that for these smaller rebuilders originally doing CC
boards that all of them came out poorly, I know that some of them did come
out well, and some not so well.  I gather, from my discussions, that it was
the high percentage of poor outcomes that drove them to look for a more
reliable method.  They are sharing what they've found and the research is
ongoing.  Everyone has the choice of building a board however they like.
Rather than speculate about this or that, the best thing to do is either
build one, or have someone build one or several for you and then decide.
Most of the discussion back and forth comes from people who haven't heard an
RC&S board.  It makes the speculations about what works and what doesn't
fairly meaningless.      

David Love
davidlovepianos@comcast.net 

-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On Behalf
Of Ric Brekne
Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2006 2:12 AM
To: pianotech
Subject: Dear Mr. Nossaman.....( Was, "Why wide, flat ribs.....? )

Again David makes some very fine points.  I would like to add a couple 
comments if I may.

One of the problems with the disscussion surrounding CC boards is that 
on the one hand they are defined as being self destruct mechanisms, 
while on the other hand there is acknowledgement that somehow some of 
these doomsday assemblies manage miraculously to survive many years and 
perform wonderfully.... something that per the definition first given 
simply cant happen... especially in any real significant numbers.

Another problem is the apparent refusal on the part of some to 
acknowledge that there are differences in the resulting sound pictures 
that the different boards make.  I've seen that discussion go round and 
around several times with RC&S enthusiasts shooting themselves in the 
foot time and time again with mutually exclusive self contradictory 
argumentation in comparing the two approaches.

Thirdly... none of the CC supporters I know of question the advantages 
of the RC&S approach to begin with.  We (I certainly) am not down on the 
RC&S idea... sounds actually great to me... predictability, comparitive 
ease of manufacture, durability... etc etc etc.  Acknowledgement of the 
apparent successes CC boards have had through the years is not 
tantamount to a rejection of RC&S boards.

The personal commentary that sometimes gets mixed in doesnt do the 
discussion any good either.  I see no point whatsoever in throwing in 
comments that essentially define a discussion partner as insincere or 
whathave you. Seems clearly non conducive to any meaningfull discussion 
IMHO.

Being a learner here is far from always easy. 

Cheers
RicB


David Love writes:

I won't speak for Ron but just want to comment that the notion that CC
boards never last or produce a good tone has been covered a lot.  From what
I've read and from endless discussions I've had, none of the advocates of
RC&S boards have made that claim.  There are many examples of fine sounding
CC boards out there.  There are also many examples of failed ones.  If I
understand it correctly, whether a wide, shallow rib has some rib crowning
doesn't really matter.  In that system, the panel must still bear a lot of
stress of compression.  There are many examples of rib crowning in
compression systems where the assembly didn't hold up or perhaps never got
there to begin with.  The goal, as I see it, is to create a more reliable
and controllable system.  The devil is still in the details.  Just because
you make an RC&S assembly doesn't mean it automatically sounds like you want
it too.  There are still several decision to be made that effect the tone
including: materials, grain angle, thickness, rib radii and dimensions,
number of ribs, configuration, scale, bridge height and probably a bunch of
other stuff I will forget to mention.  

Remember, nearly all people who get into car accidents eat French fries.  

David Love
davidlovepianos@comcast.net
_______________________________________________
Pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives