Chickering Grand Features

[Ron Nossaman]

> Antique wood. Yeah, what a hoot. I guess that's why he didn't replace 
> the soundboard, yet charged her enough for soundboard replacement. You 
> should'a seen the underneath of that soundboard - looked like ground 
> zero in southern Manhattan. Cracks, bulges, goo oozing out of cracks, 
> holes, etc., etc. Well, whatever....
>  
> Terry Farrell

Soundboards are immortal, everyone knows that, and who's crazy 
enough to look underneath anyway?


=====================================
>     And here's something I didn't know -
> 
>     * Antique wood carries sound much better, and lasts longer because
>     of the 50-80 year aging process, unavailable today.  The quality of
>     metalwork for steel and copper-wound strings, in contrast, is much
>     better today than it used to be 100 years ago.  That's why restored
>     antique pianos sound so much better than new pianos and last far
>     longer.*
> 
>     Bob D.
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The antique wood thing is precisely what professional piano 
people re-ribbing old dead soundboards (and even compression 
crowning them again!) have told us right here on this list. As 
Jack said, if you can't get the truth about pianos from piano 
techs, where can you? Still an open question. Too many 
Lockheed engineers in the profession I suspect.

Ron N