Greg Newell wrote: I myself am in the opposite camp wherein I believe that there is cellular destruction of the old wood and therefore due for replacement. My reasons follow that of which we've heard for years now on this list. This of course is assuming a CC board assembly. Your thoughts? Hi again Greg... Saw this particular quote and comment and thought I would share a couple thoughts. Certainly as a CC board an old panel which has been weakened due to compression set will be difficult to make work as a CC board. At least more difficult then a new panel. The degree with which the panel has compression strength left is the determinant here. Feasibly one could de-rib such a panel, dry it out and use it again in some kind of compression reliant assembly with success. Using it in an RC & S assembly on the other hand should be quite alright as Del stated some years back. I believe there is some truth to what Thump posted about old wood... and as a result I would think such an assembly would sound a bit different then an assembly using a brand new board. But perhaps any difference is marginal after all. I am kind of skeptical to using phrases like "cellular destruction" myself... not because there is anything inherently untruthfully about the phrase... but because it conveys a sense of the wood being rendered totally useless as a soundboard... which clearly is not the case. I also believe the whole compression set argumentation is well overstated. Not meaning to deny it is a significant factor in the life of a soundboard ... but I do find that there are very many old pianos that have very nice sound by any standards left in them. Pure statistics leads me away from accepting compression reliant panels as having a built in self destruct mechanism. Treat them well... give them a reasonably nice climate... and they will hold up nicely for a very long time indeed. I know there are many on piano tech that disagree. I also note that the vast majority of pianos made today rely on significant degrees of compression in there soundboards. These companies, at least many of them I believe... are well aware of all the issues we discuss and their significance. Cheers RicB
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