Chuck, I’m stepping out of my comfort zone to respond to your post – a post that may mislead new technicians who may be inclined to venture down the paths of restoring 100 year old pianos. By simply filling the cracks with shims and performing a static gluing of the panels to the ribs, your chances of restoring a 100 year old soundboard to it’s original impedance character are little to none.Your comment about a 1000% more “vibrant” is misleading. The stopgap repair certainly restored unity to the soundboard, but after that, a piano with that much deterioration would have little to no tension remaining within its composite structure. It defies the physics within the soundboard to believe that a massive gluing of that nature restores any rib-to-panel tension; tension that is necessary to the characteristics we associate with good piano tone. When I was young and felt I knew everything about the make-up of the piano I ventured into a massive static soundboard re-gluing job where every rib along 75% of its length was detached from the panels. The end result was a disaster. It was like listening to a ballpein hammer striking against a cast iron frying pan – all attack and no decay. I would urge technicians to seriously weigh the restoration investment to the end result before engaging in such a massive reconditioning. A good new upright piano can be had for $6,000 to $7,000, and it would have a new bridge, a new pinblock with 2/0 tuning pins, and an entirely new action, plus much more. Is it worth our reputation to encourage our clients to invest in a 100 year old piano with that level of restoration liability? Roger Gable From: Chuck Behm Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2012 9:30 AM To: pianotech at ptg.org Subject: [pianotech] Soundboard repair Hello again - For those of you who entertain yourselves upon occasion with refurbishing and old upright with a loose and cracked soundboard, I've come up with a quick and easy method of regluing the ribs to the soundboard before shimming that really seems to do the trick. I don't believe I've ever seen it done this way before (that doesn't mean it hasn't been done before - I just haven't seen it done [or don't remember seeing it done, which at my age may be a more accurate way to put it]). Anyway, click here (I hope the link works) for a photo set that highlights the process. The soundboard of the piano in the photos is a 1000% more vibrant now than it was before the procedure was done. Chuck -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20121223/4ec2517d/attachment.htm>
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