Aluminum Plates

[R. Goodale]

I am curious to hear opinions regarding aluminum plates.  I have come
across a few of these from time to time, and even recently sold such
piano. I felt it was of high enough quality that I even invested a
considerable amount of time and money into it with some new action
parts, hammers, some case work, etc.  It was really quite a nice
sounding piano when I finished it, not to mention a pleasure to move
being at least a couple hundred pounds lighter then it's cast iron
equal.

I have heard many techs argue that these plates are not capable of
holding a good tune do to flexing. Others have claimed that it changes
the accustics to some kind of undesireable degree. Yet I have not
personally found this to be the case. This recent piano turned out to be
one honey of an instrument.

My personal theory, (perhaps someone can support or rebute this), is
that it may have simply been proven to be too expensive to manufacture.
Aluminum is a rather expensive metal compared to the relative cheapness
of gray cast iron. In fact, I could have probably made a nice piece of
change extracting the plate and turning it in for cash for recycling.

So, is there really an inferiority to aluminum or are there some valid
technical points against it? Just curious.

Rob Goodale, RPT