Cheap laminated board, was Blüthner soundboard

[Ron Overs]

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>Ron Overs wrote:
>
>< Yes, the company you are referring to is Samick (is there another 
>playing this game?). The irony of Samick's attempts to make a 
>laminated panel appear to be solid (and beautifully quarter cut at 
>that) is that the laminated panels they use are 100% spruce, with 
>all laminations made from quartered stock (of the ones I have 
>inspect - out of the piano). While many of their pianos produce a 
>tone which is less than desirable, I don't believe it is the 
>laminated panel which is causing the problem. It's the numerous 
>other piano manufacturing factors which they choose to ignore. >
>
>The one I saw had what looked like mahogany in the middle layer (or 
>some kind of reddish dark wood). It might have been made by samick, 
>but the stenciled brand was "Klavier" (I guess just to make it sound 
>German :-)  ).

Ron O. - Exactly, wherever a factory is producing stencil named 
pianos, it should be the first sign to be wary of their product 
quality.

>
>Marcel Carey, RPT


Hi Marcel,

I am not familiar with stencil name you mention. While the laminated 
boards I have seen from Samick all have been 100% spruce, nothing 
would surprise me. I have inspected panels from the Toyo piano 
factory where a rubbish core was covered with a thin layer of pretty 
spruce (and there are bound to be other examples). However, one thing 
to be wary of when examining laminated sound board panels, is that 
those laminates with end grain showing at the edge will always look 
significantly darker than those which are meeting the edge with 
parallel grain. This may cause a panel to look as if it has a rubbish 
core when in fact it may be spruce all through.

As an example, if you look at the larger overhead image of the rear 
of our piano no. 003,

http://www.overspianos.com.au/bkcl.html

when you scroll to the bottom of the image you will see the widening 
trench we machined into the sound board panel just in from the inner 
edge of the inner rim (it gets wider as it progresses around to that 
area adjacent to note A1). This piano produces a fuller-toned low 
bass than a standard Steinway D or a B=F6sendorfer Imperial (and yes we 
have A-B tested it with more than one example of both instruments), 
since the panel is extremely active on account of the trenched 
perimeter around the back. The panel we used for this sound board is 
standard Samick. It is a five laminate all spruce panel, and 
surprisingly every laminate is from quarter cut stock. The upper and 
lower laminates are quite thin at just over 0.5 mm. The center three 
are all of uniform thickness to produce a panel which is 8 mm thick. 
The trench cuts into the center laminate, who's grain angle is 
parallel to the side of the piano. The second and forth laminates run 
perpendicular to the side. You will notice that the second laminate 
visible at the edge of the trench looks quite a bit darker than the 
top and center laminates since it has basically end grain running out 
into the walls of the trench.

While this board is the third laminated panel we have used, I am 
impressed with their performance so far. The next piano we complete 
will also use a Samick laminated panel. However, amongst the several 
other minor changes, I am planning to make panels with just three 
laminates from piano no. 5. While it may be standard practice for 
commercial grade factories to make panels with a thin layer of pretty 
stuff on top and bottom, while the remainder is used for the center 
laminates, we will be using select material for all laminates.

Ron O.
-- 
                  OVERS PIANOS
        Grand Piano Manufacturers
_____________________________

Web:    http://overspianos.com.au
Email:  mailto:ron@overspianos.com.au
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