Avery, Indeed, to give us some idea of how susceptible various wood species are to shrinking and swelling, the following is useful. These are the rates of shrinkage of various species of wood, in the three dimensions, the Tangential (T), Radial (R) and Longitudinal (TR) (from Hoadley's "Understanding Wood"). Red Maple T=8.2 R=4.0 TR=2.0 Sugar Maple T=9.9 R=4.8 TR=2.1 Black Ash T=7.8 R=5.0 TR=1.6 White Ash T=7.8 R=4.9 TR=1.6 Red Oak T=8.9 R=4.2 TR=2.1 White Oak T=10.5 R=5.6 TR=1.8 Red Spruce T=7.8 R=3.8 TR=2.1 Sitka Spruce T=7.5 R=4.3 TR=1.7 Engelmann Spruce T=7.1 R=3.8 TR=1.9 >From this information (which is indicative of most species) softwoods tend to fare better than hardwoods in respective rates of shrinkage and swelling. In these particular species, the three species of spruce all have more modest percentages of swelling/shrinking than any of the hardwoods. If you are experiencing a greater instability in softwoods, I'd first be curious if the sample was properly dried, rather than some inherent instability of a particular species. Regards, William R. Monroe > Any wood will have a change in moisture content with changes in relative > humidity. What changes have you observed a spruce rim making with changes > in relative humidity? Susceptible in what way? > > Terry Farrell > > ----- Original Message ----- > > Does the Bösendorfer still have those spruce rims that are SO susceptible > > to humidity changes? > > > > Avery
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