Looking for a second (or third!) opinion on a soundboard. This is the 5' 4" Knabe grand that I just finished installing a keybed in. I just flipped it over and put the action in (it actually fit in - yeaaaa!). Piano sounds a bit weak and has a bad killer octave area. I measured for downbearing with the goofy little three point brass thingee. Absolutely ZERO downbearing on the whole long bridge. Everywhere. Zero. Never saw that before. A little bit of bearing on the bass bridge. Checked for crown with the string. Excellent even 3/32" crown roughly centered under long bridge for the two tenor sections, about 1/16" to 1/32" crown for the lower part of the treble section, and zero crown for the upper treble section (exactly where the killer octave area starts!) and the high treble section. I'm gonna have one more go with the owner (a hospital - my guy who makes the piano decisions is the dude you call to have a light bulb changed or if you get stuck in the elevator) about rebuilding. I need to decide how heavily I am going to push a new soundboard. The board has no cracks. I had to glue the tenor end of the long bridge back to the soundboard a few year ago because it was buzzing. I clearly feel a new soundboard is needed to bring the piano up to its potential. But, playing devil's advocate, most of the board has good crown - why not just recap the bridges and put in appropriate downbearing - although admittedly this would be tough in the high treble where there is already a flat board - although hard to measure the little bit of crown that would/should be there. I say if the plate is coming out for new bridge caps, give it a new board also - otherwise they will likely have a very lackluster bla piano. Waddayasay??? Terry Farrell
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