new/old soundboard wood

[J Patrick Draine]

>The question is: why is it better to replace the whole soundboard with
>new wood rather than carefully withdraw the old one, unglue the ribs and
>bridges and next re-dry the sb. and reglue everything into place?
>

>By now, I do prefer to recrown the old sounboard (although ungluing it
>without damage is like a nightmare) but I wish to know your opinions.
>
>Thank You
>
>Josep Puig

There are two rebuilders in the Northhampton, MA area (I forget their names
& business' name) who were invited to give a presentation to the Boston PTG
chapter last winter. Their "specialty" is removing and repairing original
soundboards. Operating out of an old factory building with plenty of steam
heat, they have refined their procedures for directing steam to the glue
joints, loosening things up, and popping the board out. They then fit the
board back together and glue it up, and then reinstall it. They did *not*
use shims, which usually resulted in screw holes and bridge positions
shifting from their original spots.
They brought with them a repaired upright back, and a grand which they had
steamed & the board & ribs were "just popped out."
VERY different from the mainstream viewpoint which most of the audience
held (there are several shops which replace boards in the Boston area).
They were very colorful, feisty, backwoods hippy types, quite certain that
they had the WAY. Being about 100 miles east of their neighborhood, none of
us knew whether their customers were (still) happy or not. Nobody argued
with them; folks just sort of smiled and muttered "different strokes for
different folks..."
A few years ago Chris Robinson gave a technical presentation in which he
compared a piece of old, repaired soundboard with a piece of new soundboard
material. The comparison was done with a monochord copy of the salesman's
demo which all Mason & Hamlin dealers used to have.
Chris had his big Digital Equipment spectrum analyzer, which showed that
the new soundboard material generated a fuller band of harmonics (or at
least that's how I remember it) than the old piece of soundboard material.