Crowned Ribs on M&H?

[Delwin D Fandrich]

----- Original Message ----- 
[link redacted at request of site owner - Jul 25, 2015]
To: "Pianotech" <pianotech@ptg.org>
Sent: September 09, 2003 3:09 PM
Subject: Crowned Ribs on M&H?


> Del,
>
> Not to give you a hard time

Oh, feel free -- it's practically a national passtime!


>
> ... but the last time I was at the M&H plant a
> few years ago the ribs I saw were certainly flat not crowned. They have
> a large rack with rows of rib stock machined and ready to be glued to
> there boards. There bottom surfaces were nicely profiled in the usual
> manner. If there was any crown to these it wasn't deliberate. Also I
> have not noticed any more evidence of crowned ribs on older M&Hs than I
> do on older S&Ss. When you remove a old M&H board from the case it look
> pretty much like an old Steinway Board. Flat as a pancake. I am not sure
> if machined crowned ribs of the usual dimensions would show much sign of
> there heritage after many years. At least I have never come across ribs
> that were obviously crowned on these two makes.
> -- 
> John Hartman RPT



John,

Thanks for the information, but how odd. It's since become kindling but the
last board we took out of our most recent M&H BB most definitely had
crowned ribs. Every glue joint in the board was coming apart but every one
of those ribs was still nicely crowned. Not quite an 18 m crown, but close.
I suppose the board could have been replaced somewhere along the line but
it sure didn't look like it.

So were the ribs on the last AA we did, I might add. Though not to the same
strong radius.

Del