brash failure

[John Delacour]

At 11:35 am -0400 18/8/06, Ed Foote, A440A at aol.com wrote:

>...I believe that a very fine soundboard could be made with old spruce
>reattached to new ribs.

Yes, why on earth not?  What is all this talk of "brash failure"? 
Brash wood is diseased, rotten wood -- brashness is not something 
that happens to wood in the course of time but only as a result of 
exposure to malign elements of one kind or another, usually before 
conversion.  In a benign environment wood will not deteriorate and in 
35 years of restoration I have dealt with only a tiny number of 
pianos where wood has become brittle, usually, it seems, through the 
prolonged effect of chemicals in its location, and most likely 
smoking coal fires.  As regards spruce, I have never come across such 
as thing, and I have never seen a maple shank that has become 
brittle.  Those shanks that do become brittle are never maple in my 
experience.

JD