..stability issue..

[Farrell]

"There is, of course, one more solution that would be even more effective:
designing and installing laminated soundboards."

I have often wondered how one goes about accurately thinning the edges of a
soundboard. One of the things that is so cool about a laminated soundboard
is that when thinning, the various laminates will be cut through and you
will have an excellent visual guide to control the thinning process!

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Delwin D Fandrich" <pianobuilders@olynet.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2000 2:00 PM
Subject: Re: ..stability issue..


> I've been following this thread with some interest.  Of course, the
comments
> about the piano needing tuning -- at least a unison touch-up -- every
couple
> of weeks instead of every couple of months are correct.  Considering the
> humidity swings a bar/restaurant go through daily it is quite unrealistic
to
> expect a piano to stay in tune longer than that.
>
> Or is it?
>
> Humidity related tuning instability problems have been around since the
> birth of the piano.  Since this problem has been around so long, we now
have
> a pretty good idea of what causes these swings.  And, at least one partial
> solution, the Dampp-Chaser system.
>
> There is, of course, one more solution that would be even more effective:
> designing and installing laminated soundboards.
>
> Now, don't throw up your hands in despair and tell me about how lousy they
> sound -- I know better.  The traditional laminated soundboards sound lousy
> because they were either designed to sound lousy or they were not designed
> at all.  They were just kind of tossed at the piano with some vague hope
> that somehow they wouldn't sound too bad.  Others were deliberately
designed
> to sound crappy so that it would be easier to upgrade the cheapskate
> customer to a 'better' -- i.e., more expensive -- piano.  Yes, I have some
> real horror stories....
>
> There are really only two things keeping decent laminated soundboards out
of
> pianos today. One, of course, is a negative marketing history that would
> (might) make them somewhat more difficult to sell.  The marketing and
sales
> people would have to eat some of the incorrect information they have fed
the
> market about laminated soundboards.  With some creative thinking -- and it
> seams that nearly all of the creative thinking these days is going on in
the
> marketing departments -- this could be done.  The other is design
lethargy.
> Or, perhaps, the virtual absence of product design budgets in many of the
> remaining piano manufacturers.  I remain unconvinced that it cannot be
done.
> I believe that if just one manufacturer brought out a line of
> high-performance pianos using well designed laminated soundboards, it
> wouldn't be long before others were forced to get in on the switchover.
>
> The benefits are clear:
>     -- Potentially better sound across the scale, especially through the
> upper third of
>        the scale.
>     -- Better long-term tone stability.  I.e., crown stability is
better --
> tone would not
>        deteriorate through the upper third of the scale as is common with
> some
>        soundboard designs.
>     -- Potentially lower manufacturing costs.
>     -- More consistent tone performance from one instrument to the next.
>     -- Far better tuning stability through even wildly swinging humidity
> variations.
> And, perhaps most important:
>     -- Much better utilization of a rapidly diminishing natural resource.
>
> Obviously this is not going to happen until the customer starts to demand
a
> better product.  Actually, the customer is demanding something better --
> they are buying electronic keyboards to 'replace' the piano.  And can we
> blame them?  Drunk customers can't tell the difference in sound and they
> don't need tuning.  I can think of no excuse -- well, ok, complacency and
> fear -- for continuing to build pianos that have problems like this when
we
> can do so easily do so much better.
>
> Regards
>
> Del
>