a different piano design...

[Robert Goodale]

Mike Swendsen wrote:
> About 7 or 8 years ago I played a wonderful guitar that had a carbon
> graphite top.  The tone was powerful and warm.  Really a delight to
> listen to and to play. I often thought since then that it would
> probably be quite possible to build a soundboard including bridges and
> ribs out of carbon graphite/boron graphite etc..  (some new composite
> material).  Everything could be built-up or cast as necessary or as
> designed. I'm sure there a few construction restrictions with the
> new materials than with spruce. And it would be absolutely
> water/humidity resistant. ( No seasonal tuning changes due to humidity
> changes). If it could be made to sound as good as that guitar sounded, who
> knows?

It is really interesting that you have brought this up. One day I walked
into the university engineering department and found large sheets of
this material in one of the labs. It had been donated by the Boeing
corporation. I'm not sure what it was being used for, but I picked up a
small piece of it and was amazed at its acoustic proporties. It is made
of an increadably light honey-combed graphite material, the same color
as many soundboards (a kind of pale orange-yellow). I was told it could
be molded into virtually any shape if one was properly set up to do so.
A light tap with my finger resulted in a sound not unlike a piece of
spruce. What would a soundboard be like made from this material? If it
could be made from a mold, could you not produce a pre-crowned
soundboard complete with bridges and rims all in one step? 

On the downside of all this, such a high-tech material is probably quite
expensive and likely to exceed that of a conventional board. I would
also suspect it to be a hard sell getting the public's acceptance of
such a material. Thus, a high-risk enterprise. An interesting thought,
however. I would love to get my hands on some of this stuff and play
around with it!

Rob Goodale, RPT