Geoff As David explained, the buzzing is the vibrations between the soundboard and the ribs. One way to "fix" this, is to pull the soundboard to the ribs with the use of an screw through an eye bolt. (the kind you put a hook through on a screen door, only very small). Attach the eye screw into the rib, and screw a small screw into the soundboard, through the eye. It will draw the soundboard to the rib. To make it more permanent, squeeze a little glue between the soundboard and the rib. You can do this from under near, laying on your back, but it will be easier if you tip the piano on it's side. This is certainly not a perfect solution to the problem, and you might not be able to get to all the cracks/ribs, but it might eliminate enough of the buzzing to get you by for a couple of more years. . Willem (Wim) Blees, RPT Piano Tuner/Technician Mililani, Oahu, HI 808-349-2943 Author of: The Business of Piano Tuning available from Potter Press www.pianotuning.com -----Original Message----- From: Geoff Sykes <thetuner at ivories52.com> To: Pianotech at Ptg. Org <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:43 am Subject: [pianotech] Cracks in soundboard Greetings All -- I recently serviced an old, (1909), b grand piano that had been sort of rebuilt 20 or 30 years ago. New strings, pinblock, pins, that kind of thing. I had to pound the pins in a bit to get them to hold so now the piano is in tune and sounds pretty decent. However, the soundbo ard is FULL of cracks, and it buzzes like CRAZY. Fortunately the owner keeps the lid completely closed, including over the music desk, and covered with pictures and knick-knacks so these buzzes are, for the most part, not a day to day problem. My fantasy is that there is some kind of filler material, like a glue or a putty, that I can fill these cracks with from the underside, so my first question here is to that end. This is a beautiful natural wood piano but the customer is aware that the cost of possibly restringing, again, in order to repair the soundboard is not a cost effective option. Especially since it does not get played that much. The customer is also entertaining the idea of selling it just to get something smaller. What are my options here? -- Geoff • Geoff Sykes, RPT • 626-799-7545 • www.ivories52.com No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.200 / Virus Database: 270.9.11/1819 - Release Date: 11/29/2008 10:37 AM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20081129/2657516d/attachment-0001.html>
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