Soundboard wood

[pianolady50 at peoplepc.com]

Early on in my career as a piano technician, I was fortunate enough to
*have* to dismantle and dispose of a couple old uprights.  Yes, spare weird
parts were saved and some of the case parts were recylced into gorgeous
furniture.  The cast iron plates were smashed and sold as scrap iron (not
worth the trip to the scrap yard!).  Each plate weighed only approx. 100
lbs. (Hardman and a Hallet & Davis).   The seeming huge weight of a piano is
cumulative, not carried in merely one part.

And...I said *fortunate* as it is an incredible learning experience to
dissemble, totally, to scrap a piano.

Debbie
----- Original Message -----
From: "Farrell" <mfarrel2 at tampabay.rr.com>
To: "Pianotech List" <pianotech at ptg.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 6:22 PM
Subject: Re: Soundboard wood


> The spruce soundboard on a piano only weighs a very few tens of pounds. I
> believe some old, old, old pianos may have had cedar soundboards - but
were
> still very light-weight. Even the rest of the wooden components like the
rim
> (usually made of various hardwoods, such as sugar maple), other framing,
> keybed, case parts, etc. only weigh a couple hundred pounds. Most of the
> weight in a piano is the cast iron plate.
>
> Terry Farrell