more heresy (my sb responses)

[Richard Moody]

----------
> From: Stephen Birkett <birketts@wright.aps.uoguelph.ca>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: more heresy (my sb responses)
> Date: Monday, August 18, 1997 12:22 AM
> 
> Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.......
> 
> If I might paraphrase a few of the comments on the soundboard
question (to
> save quoting space): 
> 
>
> Frank and Del:
> > The wood the old guys had access to is no longer available now we
have
> > abused our forest resources. We piano builders have to make do
with 
> > inferior wood.
> >
> Birkett:
> Couldn't be more untrue for pre-1850 pianos (also harpsichords).
These
> guys didn't care about the wood like we do now. Rings per inch,
perfect
> quartering, knot- and blemish-free wood....these ideas hadn't been
> invented back in 1814. If you look at old soundboards of this
vintage
> there is wide variation in rings per inch, quartering can be as
much as
> 15-20 deg off vertical, knots and pitch pockets are present. They
used the
> same wood, either spruce or fir, that they used for the
framing...just
> extracting the reasonably quartered boards. No fuss. No bother.
Same wood
> we have available in my local lumber yard. More heresy. If you look
back
> further to the harpsichord makers, they cared even less for wood
"quality"
> in their sbs. The most perfect instruments often had wild wood by
our
> standards...pitch pockets and knots easily concealed under the sb
> painting. We have defined an arbitrary (visually based) standard
for sb
> wood, then we complain because we can't get wood of that type. It
may have
> been easier to get back in 1814, but it certainly wasn't used by
piano
> builders. (It is not necessary for acoustic reasons.)

Here is what Dolge wrote in 1911 in "Pianos and Their Makers".  The
manufacture of lumber for soundboards has been followed up as a
speciality for over 100 years.  The first specialists in this ine
were the owners of forests in the mountains of Bohemia andTyrol. 
Instead of sawing the logs into boards, they were split, like the
old-time American fence rail, into boards of about one inch
thickness.  The clivichord or piano maker of 100 years ago would  n
ot have thought of using sawed lumber for  his soundboards.  He
believed in the thoery that sound wabews traveled along the grain of
the wood and since the saw would not follow the grain, ... the piano
maker imagined that the imperceptible crossing of the grain by the
saw would interfere with the sound waves.  Today with aprox 650,000
pianos per year, the lumber fou soundboards is sawed, and the  pianos
are better than ever." 
	"The Bohemian and Swiss manufacturers of sb lumber prepared their
product most carefully.  After cutting out all knots, shakes and
other imperfections, the rough boards were smoothed off by hand
planing, cut into lengths of from 4 to 8 feet and then carefcully
packed in boxes 2 feet wide, containing 60 layers each.  Length and
width of board dictated the rice of the lumber, boards 8 feet long, 4
boards to the layer, bringing nearly twice as much per square foot as
boards 4 feet long and having 5 or 6 to the layer"
	{this is interesting in that the widest were only 6 inches}
Dolge goes on to describe a five foot cylinder planer he designed
that enabled two men to plane 300 boards a day.
	"The forests of Bohemia and Tyrol having been exhausted, the
European makers have to get their supply of lumber from Glacia and
Roumania." (sic)
The author describes how he set up a soundboard factory in Los
Angeles to use wood from Washing and Oregon. "The best wood comes
from the mountain districts of the temperate zone, at an altitude of
3,000 to 5,000 feet, where timber growth is thriftiest.  Trees not
over 100 years of age are the most desirable, the wood being strong
and elastic.  Trees under 70 of age are not matured and have too much
undebeloped sapwood."  

	There is also quite an extensive description of soundboards in Piano
Tone Building.  If I remeber right, (mycopy walked, sob) some of the
people were lamenting that the forests of Noweign spruce had been
exhausted to make air planes for WW I.  
	So it seems that soundboard material has always been a precious
commodity. 

Richard Moody

ps.  It appears that "Piano Tone Building" is no longer available
from supply houses.  If anyone has a copy they want to sell.......