Hi Ron Grin... I have to scratch my head as well at the restoration of that old TH... for exactly the reason you state. They re-new just about everything... even replace the cracked pinblock... but the soundboard gets "jacked up to the appropriate height".... ! like its going to stay there. Thats Europe for you tho... soundboard is sacred. If you change such an old one, you are a blasphemer. No ifs ands or butts about it. I have no problem with the idea of restoring the thing per sé however. But keeping a dead board.... I just do not get it. Ok ok... I am the first to fly to the defense of anyones subjective rights... but thats not whats being declared here. These cases are all the same. The only way I can see using the old panel to get anything like what the original builder got involves removing the old panel and re-ribbing. And if you don't do that then what defense is there is of using the old panel means leaving it as is. Dirt and all for that matter. Sigh... RicB Hi all, The other interesting question is why did they go to so much trouble recreating the legs and lyre, while they fudged up a dead soundboard. The result would have been more musically credible had they fudged the legs and finished the piano black while while diverting work towards replacing the board. I guess replacing the board wasn't part of their skill set. They might have done better had they spent some of their website development funds to actually learn the craft of rebuilding. It also seems amazing that someone would spend so much time restoring something that was clearly just a piece of trash to begin with, and so for away from the current best tone building practice. Ron O.
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