Laughead Piano: Anybody Heard of It?

[Delwin D Fandrich]

ralph m martin wrote:
> 
> Hi Del
> 
> You know...that's a good thought!  When joking about these little tuning
> wonders I sometimes claim that they must have a steel soundboard.
> 
> To answer your question, Del, I really don't know. Have you done any
> studies or made any personal observations on laminated boards as
> regarding tuning stability? I'd be very interested in the results. The
> next time I get one of these little wonders I'll investigate.
> 
> best regards
> Ralph

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Yes, I have. Though not nearly as much as I'd like to do. Most of the
work I did on laminated board was aimed at understanding their
acoustics. Tuning stability was a by product.

Without going into the gory details, my own conclusions were that
laminated soundboards could be designed, built and installed in such a
way as to actually improve both the acoustic performance and the tuning
stability of most of the smaller pianos for which they are currently
appropriate. (By smaller, I mean most any vertical currently being built
and grands under seven feet. I don’t know about larger grands yet, but I
suspect some improvements could be made there as well.) It will take
approaching the function of the soundboard from a slightly different
direction, but it can be done. Along the way, great strides could be
made in reducing—though not eliminating—the seasonal pitch variations
that a piano goes through.

It’s doubtful that this will be done right away. The history of
laminated boards is to rocky. Mostly because of the unfortunate way in
which they have been used in the past. I once had to troubleshoot a
problem of no crown in a certain piano. What I found was that a recent
change had been made in the construction of the piano. A laminated
soundboard panel was substituted for the previously used solid spruce
panel. The factory was very careful to properly dry the new laminated
panels just like they had done with the solid panel and all ribbing
procedures were followed properly. Unfortunately, the ribs were flat and
the cauls in the rib press nearly so. In other words, someone was
expecting the assembly to belly with the laminated panel just like it
did with the solid panel. Needless to say it didn’t happen. 

The resulting pianos didn’t sound very good and everybody blamed it on
the laminated soundboard. Not so, say I. The problem was that the change
over wasn’t properly thought through. Other changes needed to be made.
In other words, the soundboard—and its installation onto a vertical back
assembly or a grand rim assembly—needs to be regarded as a complete
system and designed accordingly.

By now, probably the biggest obstacle to laminated soundboards is our
memory of all those that have been done badly in the past. 

—ddf