?Hi Del ? Sorry. I didn't mean to put you in the hot seat so to speak. A couple thoughts & observations perhaps worth noting in regards to keeping all this stuff in perspective. Yes, I have. I have also seen a grand (the name of which I can't recall) that used a modified form of tongue & groove butt joint and another that used finger jointed butt joints. All within the vibrating portion of the panel and all working well. ? Yes I have two.?SOunded fine This subject is one I've been interested in for some time. I do not understand the unrealistic demands most manufacturers and technicians place on the flawless color, grain uniformity and defect free characteristics of the wood used to make soundboard panels. ?This is the item?that I?resonates (pun intended) with me. As Jude stated, Sika comes in a vast array of colors & grain widths. If the perfect white soundboard obsession can be put aside by some (only technicians) for a moment they will see that these other shades of Sitka are unbelievably beautiful. I recently jointed 3 boards from a gorgeous pinkish colored cant. The rings were 20 to 30 grains an inch. The wood planes easily in either direction. Why? Dunno. My point is the wood is drop dead gorgeous & it was rescued from a pulpers mill! ? ?Will anybody see that beauty?buried under the strings & plate. I doubt it. (I do)?Too bad though for us wood freaks. In all my years of installing a wide variety of panel types?has any client ever said anything but... It's beautiful. Nahhh/ Look at old Stwy boards. The great homogenizing of color is sealer coat of orange shellac. Then the Varnish. I?had two identical D's from 1971 in the shop. The one that just went out had the Weickert felt on. The wood selection in the boards was hideous to look at both in color & uneven grain counts. The?same piano?was?almost flat but with adequate bearing?& still the piano is fantastic to listen to. Sometimes I think what do I know. ? Still as rebuilders of fine instruments we must offer what is traditionally excepted as top quality materials & this for me applies to the wood selection. The color & grain count both need to be reasonable. Asthetics are still important to fine works of art in any form. I doubt many will say , my, what a beautiful carbon fiber soundboard you have there.? Or is it still a Steinway??? Hmm. We're told that these specifications somehow translate into "better" tone but solid reasons are missing. I've had more than one manufacturers rep tell me that the color of soundboard wood affects the color of tone! I'm not entirely sure but I think they actually believed this. We're told "tight" grain wood should be used in the "treble." Presumably because tight grain wood is both stiffer and heavier and this could be perceived as a benefit in the high treble. But follow that tight grain board down and you'll see it runs right under--or at least very close to--the bass bridge where it is?not at all advantageous. ? Well... I've enjoyed the sound of the tighter grain boards I've personally installed more than most others. And when using this material it needs to be thinner & thinned in the right places. ?I once had a conversation with the Late but esteemed late Sheldon Smith in the Bay area & he said he always liked the sound of reddish woods better & searched them out. Other?lumber?guys?have told me it's the iron content in the wood that creates the reddish color. I can't confirm this but the wood seems harder to blades & chisels. Higher impedance? Probably. Is that good or desirable. Depends on ones point of view and what's trying to be achieved. OK, I can understand why wood of uniform grain might be required for soundboards that are crowned by pure compression. But for good and obvious reasons this applies to fewer and fewer piano makers (and rebuilder, for that) these days. ? For all the rest the soundboard panel is simply a reasonably light-weight diaphragm supported and tied together by a rib system and a couple of bridges. Yes, a certain amount of longitudinal stiffness is required but pretty much all spruce of whatever variety and grade has enough longitudinal stiffness to suffice. ? Perhaps the carbon fiber board will put us all out of misererable discussion. It can be any thickness & hardness & we won't need to tune them as often. great! fewer tunings. Not for some. As for the mystery of wood, it is truly a mysterious wood. To say there is no such thing as magic wood is above my pay grade but I truly think the natural material?known as ?wood is indeed magic & precious in so many ways. ? Could we ever think of a Stradivarius as mystical & magical if it had carbon fiber plates for sounding boards. Will a FIne piano new or rebuilt ever have the same charisma as the one made from a finely selected spruce/wooden soundboard? I doubt it or at least not in my lifetime. As others have noted, soundboards having historically unacceptable color variations, erratic grain, pitch flaws and minor knots are the wave--so to speak--of the future. As we continue to chop away at the remaining stocks of high-grade spruce trees with little of no thought of sustainably replacing them we're going to find the cost and availability of wood with the characteristics we've been demanding growing increasingly scarce and dear. We might as well start getting?used to using what's left. ? I'm not sure wood conservation?is that dismal in some places.? It's kind of like global warming...it depend on who you ask. ?It seems that in Canada they are managing there forest in some ways & if they are not completely succeeding they are a country of people that are FAR more concerned about it & engaged than most Americans.?Trixs cousins have been engaged there for 35 years doing replanting. ?Dennis just gave forme a book called "the splintered history of wood" for?Christmas.? He makes the point that without wood we probalby wouldn't have even managed to survived as a species?to this time in history with out the magical life giving contribution of wood! Fire, shelter & toilet paper.... huh? ? Cheers ? Dale ddf ? ? Also the wave of the past. Have you never seen an old Blake upright with ship-lap jointed soundboard panels? I suspect that they used to raid their competitor's scrap piles for the material for their own boards! Mark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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