The finite life of wood grain

[erwinspiano at aol.com]

 Fine, Whatever. Let's not beat the dead horse further it's disrespectful to the horse. 

  Dale



     We've been through this again and again and again on this list, 
nd my opinion ( which will be ridiculed by some here, but I have no interest in 
urther defending ) is that old wood that has been in decent 
 reasonably clean, dry ) environments is acoustically superior. 
    ( As in: "Rich" and "Warm" sounding. ) 
    But this superior resonance can not be expressed, when the crown has 
mploded.
    I'm doing my first full soundboard recrowning according to a  new method ( 
ot yet discussed here ) and may report the results.
     
Euphonious Thumpe

-- On Tue, 10/21/08, Richard Brekne <ricb at pianostemmer.no> wrote:
> From: Richard Brekne <ricb at pianostemmer.no>
 Subject: The finite life of wood grain
 To: pianotech at ptg.org
 Date: Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 3:49 AM
 The whole problem with this <<soundboards die>>
 thing is first and 
 foremost the fact that there are way too many undead old
 soundboards 
 around. This goes for all types of soundboard
 constructions. 
 
 Wood that is subjected to seasonal climate changes that are
 sufficiently 
 large is going to deteriorate no matter what the
 application. Wood that 
 is in stable enough conditions will last a very long time
 indeed. We see 
 many 100 year old instruments, particularly Steinways that
 have very 
 fine functioning soundboards. Full of life and punch, no=0
D so-called 
 killer octave, lovely response and lots of projection
 power.
 
 The compression damage argument when matched up with the
 basic RC&S 
 philosophy gets shot in its foot.  A panel may indeed be
 very much 
 reduced in size cross grain compared to its original size
 due to 
 permanent compression set,  but when you dont rely on
 compression to 
 begin with to build a panel.. then this fact is by
 definition a plus. 
 Nothing about the permanent compression set inhibits the
 panel from 
 being re-used thus.  Only folks willingness to re-process
 an old 
 soundboard does.  I can refer to a discussion on the matter
 where Delwin 
 Fandrich himself says exactly this in an exchange between
 André, myself, 
 and Del about 8 years ago now.
 
 There is also the subject of how well wood is seasoned
 before taken into 
 use. There are many 3-400 year old houses around here.
 Small houses made 
 completely of wood.  Mite damage is really the major
 problem. But those 
 that escaped that and were otherwise taken reasonably good
 care of are 
 in very fine shape. I have on the other hand 20 year old
 siding on my 
 300 year old house that has developed wood rot in several
 places.  I've 
 re-painted every 3 years, done all the stuff you are
 supposed to do but 
 the stuff just cant match siding that was / is on houses
 that is from 
 the turn of the last century.  We see newer wood
 constructed hou
ses 
 (from the 60's onwards) developing serious structural
 problems all the 
 time around here.
 
 Cheers
 RicB
 
 
 
     This is a curious question directed toward Dale Erwin
 and other
     soundboard people.
 
     Would it be fair to say that the majority of
 soundboards die after,
     say, 80 to 100 years?  If that's true, then
 what's the major reason?
     Is it climate, or the simple fact that the board has
 been under
     pressure, or both of the the above?
 
     Also, this "death" is at the cellular /
 granular level, right? So
     then "re-crowning" would be about as useful
 as putting new chrome on
     a car with a destroyed chassis, eh?
 
     (Sorry if this is a dead horse already thoroughly
 beaten.)
 
     Thanks, and thank you again, Dale, for a great talk in
 Chicago.
     David
 
     David B. Stang
     Columbus Ohio
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