Ron, >This one's bothered me for years. We don't get many earthquakes here in Kansas, but we have other forms of natural disasters, like movers. I was recently called in by a moving company to examine a piano that had been dropped off a ramp going up eight wooden stairs of the front porch. It landed on the cement below on its back. The soundboard had two _hairline_ cracks still firmly attached to the ribs and no buzzing happening. One crack was black and the other showed white wood like we watch for when drying down a board to shim the crack. >Virtually every single time I've gotten a call on moving damage, whatever it was, the customer has asked either "Is the soundboard ok?", or "Did they crack the soundboard"? Yeah, I've had that experience too, the poor mover gets blamed for everything! Now what I want to know is how, during moving or earthquakes, a soundboard would crack unless it was directly contacted by something and pushed through, or the rim or liner were destroyed? ........ While I admit I haven't inspected a piano that was damaged while being moved during an earthquake, I still remain skeptical. I wonder how much in insurance claims is paid yearly as a result of merely pointing at a soundboard crack that has been there for a long time before the post disaster inspection brought it to everyone's attention. I know exactly what you are talking about, however, what we saw after that earthquake (which toppled a freeway, by the way) were different than the cracks that we had been seeing since we started in business in 1973, ie. old cracks are dark from dirt and grime. New cracks have white wood showing. Many of the cracks were hairline cracks in finish and not a serious concern. Most of the pianos we saw were from regular customers, most were ok, several had cracked boards, one was terrible (a steady customer of my Dad's since 1977). It seemed that the newer the piano was the more likely it was to be ok. Earthquakes are strange creatures. The earth moves in unpredictable ways. On one wall of your room even fine glass vases can sit untouched, on the adjacent wall whole bookcases can crash down. And it's not even uniform from room to room. >What I want to know is - does anyone have any reason to think that a normal-to-rough move, or an earthquake that leaves a piano standing, was the cause of soundboard cracks discovered after the fact? If so, what's the reasoning? There is absolutely NO similiarity between a normal-to-rough move and being 6 miles from the epicenter of a 8.2 earthquake! The fact that the legs didn't break (although many did) or the upright didn't topple over, does not mean that it did not bounce around during the earthquake. I was in a carpenter's shop when the earthquake hit, ran outside and saw automobiles bouncing on the streets and watched a cliff turn into what looked like a waterfall. We had about fifteen pianos in our shop at the time, most of them either new or being worked on. Two new consoles fell over (toward the front!!), one 6'bookcase fell and virtually every tool, case part, computer, phone, dish, glass,etc. that we owned. Both pianos received case damage, soundboards were intact. We were lucky, we saw a lot of bad damage other people were subjected to. Fraudulent claims to insurance companies do happen; our job is to try to know the difference and be responsible in our actions. Diane ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
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