Warped Harpsicord Soundboard Fix

Dave Smith dsmith941@hotmail.com
Mon, 2 Sep 2002 10:41:57 -0400


Terry, just a couple of thoughts from my limited harpsichord building
experience -- a Zuckerman Flemish single manual harpsichord in 1974.

First, as harpsichords are generally much much lighter construction than
pianos, any effects of humidity swings are greatly amplified in the
harpsichord.  That is mostly why they need to be tuned almost every day or
so to be in perfect tune.   The soundboard on my Zuckerman kit started out
as a sitka spruce (not laminated) piece about 1/8 " thick and was hand
planed to as little as 1/16" along its long edges.    The buzzing strings
thing never happened to me even with high humidity, but other have
experienced it when the soundboard actually warps up and interfers with the
strings.  I can send you  some scans privately of my old building
instructions from Zuckerman, which generally say, "try to build in the same
relative humidity neighborhood as the instrument will live".  As I
understand it, a slight upward crown in the soundboard is generally sought
after by builders, keeping in mind that humidity fluctuations have enormous
effects on harpsichords as compared to pianos.

Second, Hubbard Harpsichords is a venerable maker of kits and complete
harpsichords.  Frank Hubbard "wrote the book" for modern builders.  So,
although I dont follow all of the logic expressed in the article you posted,
I imagine it is generally correct for harpsichords.

I recently traded in my self-built harpsichord and clavichord for a
professionally built harpsichord by Ted Robertson
http://www.robertsonharpsichords.com/.
Ted went to a lot of trouble to bridge and install the soundboard by raising
the humitidy level  in his winter-Indiana workshop  to be more like mine
here in SW Florida..  You are invited to visit here and we can compare
"notes".

I'd be interested from Avery on this subject, as he has much broader
experience with different harpsichords than I.

Dave Smith
Bondi's Rookie
Pine Island FL
----- Original Message -----
From: "Farrell" <mfarrel2@tampabay.rr.com>
To: <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: Monday, September 02, 2002 9:44 AM
Subject: Warped Harpsicord Soundboard Fix


> I ran across this doing a search for Damp-Chaser.
>
> Creative fixes for warped harpsicord soundboards can be found at:
>
http://www.hubharp.com/technical%20articles/soundboard_warped_soundboards.ht
m
>
> Two questions. What on earth is this guy talking about? And are harpsicord
soundboards THAT much different than piano soundboards (isn't a harpsicord
board made with some crown)?
>
> Terry Farrell
>


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