Hi Don I cant help you with the journal article, but I can offer a few thoughts. In general, a bit of heat, solvent, and pressure works great. The effectiveness of alcohol is dependant on the type of glue you are trying to loosen however. A way that has worked well for me is to suspend the instrument from the underside around the edge of the panel. Then apply continued heat and moisture over a period of a couple days. Heat can be applied by a length of heating cable or a series of lights. You can keep the edge of the panel moist in a variety of ways but if it stays moist continuously the glue will loosen sooner. I like to hedge my bets by mixing up a bit of alcohol, wallpaper solvent, and water together. Just keep the joint moist, and heated and in a day or so the panel will just pop out. Patience is the key. Dont push on it, or force the issue. Let the glue simply soften and give way. You can take off the old ribbing in similiar fashion. This is actually my prefered method of repairing cracks in soundboards. Instead of shimming, I just pull the soundboard back together and glue along existing cracks. New ribs can be attached as desired and you can re-establish crown in your prefered fashion. I'm about to get started on an old first year production Julius Bluthner Patent Grand and will be using this basic approach to repairing the soundboard. I have to try and find out what degrees of crown old Julius used way back when, and how achieved it first. That kind of info seems difficult to be sure of. Cheers RicB -------------------- Could someone identify the somewhat recent issue of the Journal having the article pertaining to removing a soundboard using alcohol. For some reason, I cannot seem to locate it. Don Valley
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC