Soundboard drydown for installation

[Ron Nossaman]

> I'm not sure how much sense the crowned bridge makes to me or any crown 
> along the grain. 

Consider that on a rim that's essentially a plane, it's not 
geometrically possible in any board that has crown along the 
ribs, to *not* have crown along the grain. It's a result, not 
a feature.


> The other point I wish to make is that we have to remember that 
> we're not dealing with one board glued at each end, but rather several 
> planks glued together and then mounted all the way round. Ron's 
> experiment is a good one but it would be good to try to repeat the 
> concept of the experiment using a model that comes closer to a piano 
> soundboard. 

The only purpose of that model was to illustrate that 
soundboard crown isn't an end buttressed arch, which I think 
it did well enough. What else would you expect or wish a 
larger and more complex model to show?


> It is all very interesting, and paraphrasing Udo, how can we expect one 
> piano to satisfy the whole repertoire from Scarlatti to Thelonious Monk 
> and beyond. Still, I won't be happy until I can say that this species of 
> wood with such and such modulus of elasticity, given x amount of load, 
> with y rib scale and design, and so and so's hammers yield this type of 
> sound. Yeah, dream on...

When you finally do, you'll find that there will be people who 
don't like the sound because that ain't how it's done and what 
they're used to, and others for whom no "theoretical" hair can 
be split fine enough to satisfy them, whatever you actually 
produce.
Ron N