<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <META content=text/html;charset=iso-8859-1 = http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content='"MSHTML 4.72.2106.6"' name=GENERATOR> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV> </DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 solid 2px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-LEFT: = 5px"> <DIV>-----Original = Message----- From: Delwin D Fandrich <<A = href="mailto:pianobuilders@olynet.com">pianobuilders@olynet.com</A>>= To: <A href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">pianotech@ptg.org</A> = <<A = href="mailto:pianotech@ptg.org">pianotech@ptg.org</A>> Date: Sunday, February 15, 1998 3:42 PM Subject: Re: a = different piano design... </DIV>  Mike, There are several materials available today that would probably = make good piano soundboards. Take a look at the patent files. I've worked with = only a couple of them, and those only enough to probably be dangerous. That = is to say, I'm not ready to give up on Sitka spruce quite yet. There are a number of problems facing the brave soul who first = tries to market a piano with a composite -- or whatever -- soundboard. Most = of those problems will have to do with convincing the technical community = that they will really work. No matter that this board may appear in the best = sounding piano the world has ever seen. Del   I remember, a number of years ago talking to Klaus Fenner.  = He mentioned that he had had some of Samick's laminated = soundboard  material sent to one of the German manufacturers that he buys pianos = from.  The factory manager didn't know about the soundboards, = but he had some of the technicians in the factory install them into pianos, = then he took the manager into the plant and told him that he wanted to = select the best sounding instruments that they had produced.  All of them = had the laminated soundboards  in them.  When he pointed this out = to the manager, he was told that they wouldn't change even if they were = better, because if the other manufacturers found out that they were using = laminated boards, they would start saying that he had to do that to save money = and he was obviously going out of business. Go Figure Mike</BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>