Soundboard Evaluation

[Wilsons]

Sorry, it's 6:45 am, and I missed the part of your note about the flat
board and zero crown being in the same area as the dead sound.  I'd still
try a few things w the action first, though.

Wally

At 10:51 PM 6/14/01 -0400, you wrote:
>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
>