Forgive me for all capping, I think that the soundboard is important. Unless someone has driven a truck through the old soundboard, I would not replace an old one with a new one. The exception is flood damage where it sat wet long enough to get major reverse crown. Then I would keep the old board only if I could get it out of the piano and get all the ribs off without major damage. If you allow me this observation. You would never consider restoring a 280 year old Stradivarius violin by tossing out the soundboard and replacing it, would you? But we would with a piano much younger? Recrowning the soundboard is not a procedure that can be written in an email. I have been writing on a booklet for some time that details such work. I may have it available on my soon-to-be-put-up website in a few months. It involves putting the soundboard back under the pressure it had on it when new. If you think of the top and bottom surfaces of the soundboard as two parallel lines starting and ending at the same points, you will realize that if the top line is made longer it pulls the bottom line into an arc. the ends stay together and do not move. This is the whole principal. Art Reblitz does the same procedure that I do. Perhaps he will also write a book about it. It makes the difference between an old piano sounding like an old piano after restringing and that same piano sounding like a new one but with an extra roundness or darkness of tone. It also prevents soundboard shims opening up from cracking down one side a few years later. D.L. Bullock www.thepianoworld.com St. Louis --------Original message------------ <Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 23:07:20 -0500 <From: Ron Nossaman <RNossaman@KSCABLE.com> <Subject: Re: Liberace, Borge, and Stieff but not together <>I would put your Stieff <>upright fully restored and WITH THE ORIGINAL SOUNDBOARD RECROWNED up against <>any major brand grand under 7ft that I have seen in the last 20 years. <D.L., <Since we've apparently finally reached the ALL CAPS level of soundboard <recrowning enthusiasm, and since three others have already asked, how about <sharing your method(S) of RECROWNING ORIGINAL SOUNDBOARDS? <Ron N -------------------------------------------
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