<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> Hi Del, and thanks once again. I think I have enough to go on with for now. Just trying to get a better handle on what happens when you do this, or that... in my own way. I wasnt really trying to propose anything, or resurect any dead horses. And I keep wanting to try and find some rational for why so many seem to insist on the CC board. As I've said .... its really difficult to simply accept the tradition and marketing lines as complete explanations. Perhaps when I have the benifit of deeper insights I will. I suppose my learning curve has a bit different shape to it then maybe some are used to... but its mine and I am stuck with it. I keep pluggin along as best I can. As far as experimentation... actually I am just in the process of buying a small hot box for fooling around with some of this. Probably try all sorts of off the wall combinations... just to see what happens. Anyways... thanks again. RicB Delwin D Fandrich wrote: <blockquote TYPE=CITE> <blockquote dir=ltr style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000080 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">  Hi Del... actually... I was rather thinking (again perhaps another one of those bunny trails...) that perhaps one could add about a 1/8th inch thick strip of left over sounboard material to the top half of the rib, grain in the same direction as the panels. If it was dried to say 6.5 MC prior to attachment to the rib... and the soundboard was dried to say 4.5 MC why wouldnt this tend to sort of buffer the ribs cross grain constraint ? When taking on humidity this layer would get slightly compressed by the rib... and since its grain is in the same orientation of the panels it wouldnt force that into nearly as much compression.... er.. I think :)... If there was not enough crown you could rib crown enough to make up the difference. I suppose you could rib crown to begin with.. but if this provided a kind of solidly glued  << slip joint >> , and if there was some good reason to dry out the panel to 4.5 MC as long as one could avoid exceeding the stress limits... well... Anyways.. I'm just fooling with ideas in attempt to better sort out what does and doesnt happen. yes ?? RicB</blockquote> <div dir="ltr"></div> I fail to see the point. Any time you dry a soundboard panel that far down there are going to be compression problems later on. Period. There is no way to "buffer" it. Unless, of course, you leave the panel free of constraints and let it float free. I.e., ribless and unattached. It is the MC in the panel--actually, the lack thereof--that is the problem. Since leaving the panel free and unattached is not a practical solution the simplest way to avoid the problem is to not dry them out that way. This is nothing I'm even remotely interested in working on. As you say, why not just crown the ribs? It's a simple and effective solution. It's a well known technology that has been around long enough that its working characteristics and advantages are fairly well known. And, by now, it's a technology that should be well accepted. Of course it is by many in the industry. And it would be by many more if it weren't for the monumental weight of tradition and design lethargy endemic to the industry. Personally I just don't see any reason to keep beating away at what I see as a dead horse. It's not going to come back to life--it's just going to keep right on being dead. The best you can do is tenderize the meat a little. Life, and most of the piano industry, moves on. As always, you're encouraged to design and construct an experiment. I'll not bother...I'm quite content with the rib crowning techniques I've worked on and refined over the years.. Del</blockquote> -- Richard Brekne RPT, N.P.T.F. UiB, Bergen, Norway <A HREF="mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no">mailto:rbrekne@broadpark.no</A> <A HREF="http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html">http://home.broadpark.no/~rbrekne/ricmain.html</A> <A HREF="http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html">http://www.hf.uib.no/grieg/personer/cv_RB.html</A>   </body> </html>