soundboardsre:

[Richard Brekne]

Hi all

This, of course, is the reasoning behind why many, tho a clear minority, 
find it attractive to carefully remove soundboards from pianos, ribs 
from panels, and construct new soundboard assemblies using the old wood. 
No doubt why such soundboards will and do sound differently then 
identically assembled soundboards using new wood for the panel.  Whether 
or not some particular person <<likes>> (or not) the resulting character 
is a completely different matter.  P's and Q's

rb

> Subject:
> Re: Sound boards, wood and crown ( Old vs. New )
> From:
> gordon stelter <lclgcnp@yahoo.com>
> Date:
> Wed, 19 Jan 2005 21:19:05 -0800 (PST)
>
>
>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
>
>  
>