At 11:51 pm +1000 23/7/07, Scott Jackson wrote: >...I am familiar with violin varnish which my brother uses, but i >had not considered that pianos used something comparable. They didn't, at least in England and Germany. The varnish used on almost all piano soundboards in Europe from the year dot is "white hard varnish", which is a solution of mainly gum sandarac (a pale yellow resin) in spirit. It does not sink into the wood but gives a very brittle coating that is easily scratched. Fiddle varnish is an oil varnish containing very special gums, costing many times the price of white hard varnish and quite unsuitable for piano soundboards. There is nothing mysterious or magic about the properties of white hard varnish -- it is cheap and quick and designed simply to protect the soundboard from the elements. I can think of very few makers, including famous makers, who paid much attention to getting a smooth bright finish on their soundboards -- Lipp and Brinsmead are the only ones that spring to mind -- and this may have been achieved by french-polishing over the white hard varnish when it had gone hard. I have done this several times with excellent results but it does take a long time. A good soundboard man in most factories probably finished a grand soundboard in less than 5 minutes. You can't work slowly with white hard varnish. JD
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