Soundboard Finishing

[Farrell]

"> Bleach the entire board using wood bleach"

Yea, but, don't you worry about the bleach seeping in at the soundboard
edges? And don't you need to wash the wood bleach off with water? How do you
avoid a mess or damage to piano? Do you like just use wet rags and such, and
not really have water sloshing all over?

P.S. I'll open myself up for verbal attack here: I just shimmed (about 25
feet worth of shims!) a board that was very brown in color - much like the
color of cedar heartwood. Knowing that nice new spruce shims would stick out
horribly, I used some nice cedar heartwood for the shim material. Matches
perfectly. When I thumped the board before shimming (and glueing ribs, etc.)
the board sounded like concrete. After lots of shimming (after drying real
good) board has a bit of crown and a real nice thuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmpppppp
sound!

Terry Farrell
Piano Tuning & Service
Tampa, Florida
mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Glenn Grafton" <gleng@fast.net>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, November 06, 2000 10:39 AM
Subject: Re: Soundboard Finishing


> >I know this won't be as much fun as all the bantering on the list lately,
> >but the last couple of soundboards I've repaired came out very
inconsistent
> >in color.  I usually use the Spurlock shimming system and put a light
coat
> >of Deft to finish.  I have tried oil stains, touchup pens, dyes, etc.
The
> >last one had a couple of previous shims in it, so I had old soundboard
color
> >(varied), old shim color, new shim color.  Yikes!  I tried a softwood
> >preparation by Minwax (for even stain absorption), then Minwax stains,
but
> >__as soon as anything is put on the board, it gets dark__ and
inconsistent.
> >Any suggestions? I don't have this problem with some boards.  Thanks!!
>
> We've acheived excellent results with similar projects.
>
> Strip the entire board.
> Sand the entire board.
> Bleach the entire board using wood bleach.
> After dried out thoroughly sand the entire board again finishing up with
> 400 grit sandpaper.
>
> Rather than trying to darken the shim, you are lightening the rest of the
> board to match the shim. Benefits are that the board looks like new.
>
> We have been succesful going the other way on a replaced treble bridge on
a
> Sohmer grand. The bass bridge was fine but the new treble bridge would not
> have matched the old bass bridge. Our finishing guy was able to stain with
> a very light tint to match the bass bridge identically.
>
> Bear in mind that these are 2 seperate disciplines with different skills
> involved. In our case, the piano tech. doing the bridge replacement and
the
> soundboard shim work was not the same guy that did the finishing.
>
> BTW, we usually use a spray gun with lacquer for the soundboard finish.
>
> Glenn Grafton
> Grafton Piano & Organ Co.
> Souderton PA
> http://www.dprint.com/grafton/
> gleng@fast.net
> 800-272-5980
>
> The box said "Requires Windows 95, or better." So I bought a Macintosh.
>
>
>