Hey Jude :) Interesting that you say Hartwig contradicted this inside the factory.... You've been to the Hamburg factory then ?... interesting because it was this same Hartwig that on my tour of the factory informed me that the ribs WERE crowned and ... that they didnt dry out to more then around 5.5 EMC before ribbing...and the bit about the hotbox just before gluing the assembly into the rim... and the rest of it. But to be sure... I will give all this the benifit of the doubt and re-ask these specifics when I go down their again in the near future. I can cross check with a couple other guys down there as well. Still, I remember writing to the list about the whole thing immediatly after return from Hamburg when it was all fresh in my memory.... But ok... I'll double check :) Thanks for posting. Cheers RicB ____________________________________________________________ A few cents...ladies and gents, I've heard before that Hamburg pre-crowns ribs, but this was contradicted by Hartwig inside the factory. I would love some confirmation, Ric, and any other juicy tidbits you might be able to extract. I understand they're a lot more open in Hamburg than NY. As for Steingraber, they seem to be the only company that is really trying to preserve a dome shape to their boards. Not only do they glue a pre-crowned treble bridge to an unribbed board, they also custom fit the rim all the way round, which makes more sense than assuming a 1 degree angle on three sides will yield anything except more stress (not that I'm saying more stress is undesirable). The Germans seem to have done copious research on stress in soundboards as a tone-producing ingredient, according to Sauter. There are many texts in German which have yet to be translated into English. The Steingraber bass bridge is attached after the board is installed because of the many centemeter variations in the plate casting. The bass bridge is therefore hallowed out at the root to allow it to flex onto the crown of the board. Regards, Jude Reveley, RPT Absolute Piano Restoration, LLC Lowell, Massachusetts (978) 323-4545
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC