Shopping for a Belly

[Bill Ballard]

At 10:55 PM -0500 4/22/03, Ron Nossaman wrote:
>We certainly do.
>...snip...
>Don't know.
>...snip...
>Yup.
>...snip...
>Yes, but from what - to what?

Thanks, Ron and Terry for this general discussion about the 
wilderness to be explored once you've decided not to copy when you're 
replacing, but to re-design it on better principles.

But let me be more specific. This is my own piano, a 1911 Steinway O. 
It had a new belly installed 30 years ago, arranged through the local 
Steinway dealer, either at Trefz in Philadelphia or at the Factory 
Restoration Center (subcontracted through a rebuilder in Boston). 15 
years later, the killer octave had died. I was all set to give the 
board the "epoxy corset", but decided that since this is the piano 
which is going to be my companion during early morning bouts of 
insomnia, it deserved a new board. It now has a double crown, ie., 
one on each side of the bridge. That was not the kind of board which 
would reward me for my investment.

So I wanted to find someone out here who was on the same track as Del 
and Ron, rare birds that they may be. And I figured that two leading 
questions should do it. The first (crowned ribs) would tell me that 
they had at least made the jump into the ballpark I was interested 
in, and the business about fully or partially crowning would tell me 
the extent to which they were doing their own engineering. The second 
(working E.M.C. during the process) would tell me what they knew 
about where E.M.C. should fit between the fatal floor (where 
extraction of moisture collapses cell walls), and the reasonable 
ceiling. That reasonable ceiling is based on the range of R.H. the 
piano will encountered once it's delivered, and should be set such 
that, during the dry winter, board E.M.C. won't drop below the 
process E.M.C. (splitting the board), and during the summer it won't 
raise high enough above process E.M.C. to cause compression failure. 
(A 6% spread between process E.M.C. and hot humid summer E.M.C. is 
what I was quoted in a conversation yesterday.) Certainly climate 
control is a necessary ingredient in this.

So, back to square one. I'm hoping that I don't have to ship the 
piano out to Kansas or Washington to get a bard of this style, and 
thought that with the right leading questions I could find someone up 
here doing board work with the same approach. My two questions seem 
well designed, and the follow-up questions would be based on how 
these first two were answered.

>What we say we do is inevitably different than what we think we do 
>is different from what we actually do is different than what we 
>think we did differs from what the customer thinks we did is 
>different than what another tech sees and is sure that we have done 
>- whether we did it or not. First you think, then you try to do what 
>you think is right, by your thinking, and everyone else will think, 
>or feel, what they will think, or feel, regardless of what you 
>think, feel, or do. It's a zero sum game. For every truth you 
>establish for yourself, someone else's will be outraged.

Wise words. Thanks, Ron.

Bill Ballard RPT
NH Chapter, P.T.G.

"May you work on interesting pianos."
     ...........Ancient Chinese Proverb
+++++++++++++++++++++