Soundboard repair question

[Annie Grieshop]

Yea!  So I was not looking widely enough at the system to take into account
the interactions of all the parts.  Thanks for the education, as always.

Annie G.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ron Nossaman [mailto:rnossaman at cox.net]
> Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2008 8:15 AM
> To: annie at allthingspiano.com; Pianotech List
> Subject: Re: Soundboard repair question
>
>
>
> > 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
>