Reverse crown doesn't have to mean negative bearing. David Love davidlovepianos at comcast.net -----Original Message----- From: pianotech-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Ric Brekne Sent: Sunday, April 23, 2006 4:55 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: Why do we need crown? Hi Calin I dont think one actually does need crown. Del seems to think that crown was an accident to begin with, and tho I am not sure I would go that far... it seems to me that all you need is adequate downbearing support and a good combination of mass and stiffness. Crown perhaps facilitates these needs to some degree tho. We know we can get a <<free>> increase in stiffness for same amount of mass with crown and subsequent downbearing for example. All this is one of the trains going through my mind with regard to grain direction and laminate boards. There is lots of stiffness/strength along the grain. Laminating a curve along the grain and orienting this perpendicular to the bridge for the needed support against downbearing would perhaps allow more degrees of freedom in ribbing dimmensions needed to aquire the desired combination of mass/stiffness. Reverse crown would probably mean using some other bridge termination device then bridge pins... at least in the grand. I would also think that downbearing in such a situation would be a negative. Cheers RicB .......... Hello! All the discussion about crowned ribs, panels and such led me to a question: Why is there a need for crown in a soundboard? If one would use a flat panel with adequately proportioned ribs, such as to provide the necessary stiffness of the panel and resistance to the down bearing of the strings, wouldn't the soundboard work just as well? Yes, it would probably be bent in a reversed crown, but I really don't see a problem with that for now. Regards, Calin Tantareanu
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC