Soundboard repair question

[Ron Nossaman]

> Does epoxy repair change the soundboard response, then, or does it simply
> stabilize the board and ribs?  

Neither. Filling a crack is a cosmetic repair.


> My thought is that any material other than wood (and a similar wood, at
> that) is going to affect soundboard response negatively, but I don't know if
> it's as negative as a crack (which looks to me like a barrier to vibration
> transmission from one part of the board to the others).  Is any of that in
> the ballpark, even?

Not even, sorry. The ribs tie everything together cross grain, 
and the crack makes no detectable difference in assembly response.

For the last 50,000 years, piano salesmen have been pointing 
to soundboard cracks and proclaiming them as evidence that the 
piano is dead, the better to sell them another one. By now, 
everyone on the planet has it encoded at the genetic level 
that soundboard cracks are the worst possible thing that can 
happen to their piano. Nope, sorry, the crack is a symptom of 
something else, but itself is a non concern.

Ron N