Sound boards, wood and crown ( Old vs. New )

[gordon stelter]

A soundboard that has compressed has done about all
the compressing its going to do. That's an advantage.
The resins have evaporated out their volatiles,
leaving a hard varnish coating on the cell interior
walls. That helps the wood be stiffer, and absorb
vibrations less, transmittinmg them instead of
converting them to heat energy. That's an advantage
because more vibration will then activate the board
surface which interfaces with the air, creating sound.
More energy will also be able to spread around the
board from its initial entry point under the bridge.
That's an advantage. The interior, evacuated area of
the cells will also help color the tone, creating that
"warm" sound, I do believe. And I consider this an
advantage.
     The DIS-advantage of old boards, then, is simply
that they have lost crown, or become S-shaped in cross
section: so they do not exert enough resistance
against downbearing in a uniform, resilient manner, to
extract from the strings the energy necessary to
create sound in a well-defined manner with decay
across a wide dynamic range.
     I just played a new, large, Steinway upright. It
was very nice for an upright! But something was
lacking in its tone that even my 106 year old,
unrestored Everett upright has.
     I believe that if the technique of recrowning old
boards can be "perfected", it would be as good an
alternative as board replacement.
     Thump

P.S. The above represents my opinion, and is not to be
construed as fact.

--- Cy Shuster <741662027@theshusters.org> wrote:

> There was a recent discussion about coating
> soundboards with epoxy to make them stiffer, so that
> they perform better.  So I don't think "petrifying"
> is always bad (if it's meant in terms of increasing
> stiffness).  Probably, like all generalizations,
> it's false...
> 
> --Cy Shuster--
> Bluefield, WV
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Gevaert Pierre 
>   To: Pianotech 
>   Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 4:28 PM
>   Subject: Re: SWound boards
> 
> 
>   Hi Quentin,
> 
>   I once spoke to an old pianoforte builder and he
> said this petrifying process was rather good than
> bad for the tone of soundboards?
>   Unfotunately he had no time to tell me more about
> this.
> 
>   Pierre 
>     ----- Original Message ----- 
>     From: Quentin Codevelle 
>     To: pianotech 
>     Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 8:07 PM
>     Subject: SWound boards
> 
> 
>     Hi Andre,
> 
>     I think someone (maybe Joe Garrett) a few months
> ago talked about the wood's "petrifying" process.
>     This was an interesting idea, and we can clearly
> imagine that this process makes the soundboard
> become less and less reactive or vibrating.
> 
>     Quentin



		
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