Dolge on soundboard wood

[Richard Moody]

So what is the right way of preparing soundboards from the right
wood? Was Dolge  then laughing all the way to the bank with the
revenues from his sb's? (His factories ran from circa 1870 to 1910)
	"Today with the production of approx. 650,00 pianos per year, all
the lumber for soundboards is sawed... and the pianos are better than
ever." Alfred Dolge. (1910)
(Sorry if this quote wasn't the post you are referring to, it should
have been. rm) (see "more heresy my sb responses" Aug 18)

 
Yes I saw that letter about exposing the soundboard to the elements. 
However I forgot the source.  Could you give a pointer to it?
 
Richard Moody 

ps Who is Bill Jurgenso/en?  What are some of his instruments ?
pps  Who is Stainer?

 
----------
> From: Stephen Birkett <birketts@wright.aps.uoguelph.ca>
> To: pianotech@ptg.org
> Subject: Dolge on soundboard wood
> Date: Thursday, August 21, 1997 11:11 PM
> 
> Richard quoted Dolge on soundboard wood.
> 
> More heretical debunking I guess...you have to take all the writing
of 
> this type with a huge pinch of sodium chloride. I think they were
really 
> just having some fun, rather than trying to actually deceive
readers. Or 
> else they figured nobody would know anything about pre-1900 pianos 
> anyway at that time, so they could say what they liked. It goes
back 
> quite a while too.

Dolge made at least 100,000 soundboards and talked to piano makers
from 1850 to 1910.  before he wrote his book.  

>..remember the old chestnut from Stein about how
>he 
> hung his soundbaords in the sun, rain and snow for 3 seasons so
>they 
> would crack then he could fix them so they wouldn't crack in the 
> piano...bs, but great advertising material eh? Anyway here's a
little 
> comment to pass on to you on Dolge, from Bill Jurgensen:
> 
> 
> .....FORWARDED MESSAGE
> Of course SB wood was split, while green: it is easiest to do and
> automatically gets rid of bad stuff. I've seen lots of SBs with
split
> surfaces on parts of the underside where they were already too
thin. For
> Obvious reasons, this can only pertain to quartered wood.
Unfortunately
> for the "theory", lots of fir and cypress and cedar were used as
well,
> both quartered and slab-cut and in between.  Viz. the Streicher SB,
this
> was definitely sawn.  According to Roubo, wood ws sawn. Violin
makers
> (again) supposedly split their logs to get the wedge-shaped pieces
with
> exact mirror image. Stainer in Tyrol (17th c.) used sawn lumber:
his
> brother-in-law owned the saw-mill in the village. Stainer used two
> consecutive pieces of the same board to approximate the mirror
image. Nuf
> said.  Like almost all of the turn-of-the-century stuff, this is so
much
> folklore: a little truth (by accident) combined with a lot of
hogwash,
> given mostly by the sources themselves for their own amusement.
> 
> Bill
> 
> William Jurgenson
> Keyboard Instrument Maker
> 
> 
> Stephen
> 
> Stephen Birkett Fortepianos
> Authentic Reproductions of 18th and 19th Century Pianos
> 464 Winchester Drive
> Waterloo, Ontario
> Canada N2T 1K5
> tel: 519-885-2228
> email: birketts@wright.aps.uoguelph.ca
>