lexan or plexiglass for soundboards?

[Antares]

Hello,

A guy in Holland has in coorporation with a glass/epoxy business produced a
number of soundboards made with plexiglass, or something like that, called
"Chrystal soundboard".
The result?
An interesting but poor tone which needs an electrical amplifier.
First it hit the newspaper, then a factory or two were at his door. Now,
nobody is interested anymore. The project has died out.

Friendly greetings,

Andr» Oorebeek







>Hi
>I have wondered about this for several years, I wonder if a synthetic material
>be used to replace spruce soundboards and has anyone in the group experimented
>with soundboards?
>
>Lexan(I am not sure if I spelled that correctly) is used in high power speaker
>boxes. It looks sort of like Plexiglas. It seems to be very responsive as far
>as amplification and vibration goes.
>
>I was thinking that an experiment could be made with a cheap old upright that
>has a solid piano action, By tearing it down, Gluing the ribs to a 1/4" sheet
>of lexan (or similar material) forcing crown into the material, installing the
>bridges & restring the old piano and finding out how loud the tone would be. I
>certainly think it would not suffer cracks like the old spruce does.
>
> Who knows........ it might be very loud and sweet or it might be completely
>dead!
>
>Also I would like a source for ABS plastic hammer butts. I have heard about
>them and would like to try a set on a player piano to see how well they would
>hold up in a high stress situation.
>
>I would appreciate your thoughts.
>Andy Taylor
>