rib placement

[Ron Nossaman]

Hi all,

I have a question that's probably in Del's area of expertise more than the
rest of us, so I'll address it mostly to him. 

Del, I think you said in a post a while back that the tone quality in the
problematic high tenor/low treble, octave 5 1/2 - 6 range, could be
significantly improved by changing the ribbing arrangement in that area. Is
that correct? If so, I'm curious how the crown in the redesigned area holds
up with time. This section always seems to have the worst time maintaining
crown through the years and I was wondering if you have had a significant
number of custom ribbed boards out there long enough to get a good cross
section on their aging characteristics. Does your modification involve
height contour changes to the rim? Why does this section of the board tend
to go flat in the first place? I hope this is a fairly simple thing, and I
haven't started one of those "neverendingthreads"?  

Thanks,

 Ron Nossaman