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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