Recrowning the soundboard,something different

[Farrell]

I "rebuilt" an Estey microgrand a while back and dried the heck out of the board, wedged the heck out of it, and put umpteen shims in the board. After cleaning up the board, letting it cool down, and removing wedges, I was absolutely tickled to see that the board had a good 3/8" or so of crown. Hit it with your fist and it went BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. Well, at least Boom.

Then I strung it. The crown immediately went down, flat as a, well, a board - as in flat as a pancake. I only used super-minimal downbearing. Needless to say, I'm don't feel anxious to try introducing crown in this manner.

Terry Farrell
  
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Nossaman" <RNossaman@KSCABLE.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 11:12 AM
Subject: Re: Recrowning the soundboard,something different


> >As Ron and Del pointed out in the recent thread about a curve cut into the 
> >bridge
> >prior to installing that the bridge does not support crown, it is too
> flexible.
> 
> Not only too flexible, but at least as important by my observations -
> whether the bridge is crowned or not, it is not a straight beam like a rib.
> It's curved, and won't support weight the length of it's span like a
> straight beam. It merely rotates.
> 
> 
> >Perhaps the improvements were a result of the new strings and hammer work.
> >Regards,
> >
> >Jon Page,   piano technician
> 
> Somehow, this is only rarely considered as a possibility. Nor does anyone
> ever seem to actually check the condition of these recrowned boards next
> year to see if any of that re-installed crown is still there.
> Ron N