Jon - A block plane is great for trimming soundboard shims. Hold the plane upside down in your left hand, and draw the shim over the blade with your right.
After a few Band-Aids, years ago, I went ahead and cut a couple of V-grooves in an oak board, different depths, that would hold the shim so I could plane down to a reasonable height before gluing in. A wide enough dado to hold the shim upside down for trimming the bottom edge, and no more blood!
Nowdays, I will use a small thumb plane and trim the shim in the piano, down to where a couple of passes with a sharp chisel will leave the top of the shim flush with the board. I have a lot of shims out there in old boards that I didn't refinish. In those cases, and especially where there is a decal to be shimmed through, I got the shim near final dimension before gluing in, and then used a chisel like a plane to take the shim flush to the board without cutting away any decal. A little French polish, maybe some stain, and you can just about make the shim disappear. It is important that the last pass of the chisel be an unbroken slice, so I try to get the shim down to .3 mm or so before making that last curl of spruce. It is always a good excuse to run it over a 4000 grit waterstone I have.
I have been using some wooden organ pipes for stock. The fronts and backs were quarter sawn spruce, but the sides were cut in every direction. Anybody know what importance the quarter sawn parts would have, since the other parts were so varied? I am sure it is an acoustical reason, but why escapes me.
Regards,
Ed Foote RPT
http://www.uk-piano.org/edfoote/index.html
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