R,C&S question

[Ron Overs]

Jude and all,

>. . . I'll just have to try a pure RC&S for myself.

Please do take the plunge. It would have been a real leap of faith 
not so long ago. But there are too many examples of successful 
attempts out there, which should give you more confidence to leap in.

I believe the purest version of RC&S is to use a laminated panel with 
an appropriately-designed crowned rib set. If a solid panel is used, 
when building an RC&S board, there remains some assistance from the 
re-hydrated panel. This is not however, a criticism of the practice 
of drying solid RC&S panels down to 6 - 7%, since it would be quite 
dangerous to build any solid paneled board without some pre-drying, 
to avoid the likelihood of checking during dry transients. But when a 
laminated panel is used, the problem of checking is/will be totally 
avoided, and the maker is free to bring the panel and ribs together 
for gluing under normal room conditions. This might seem like heresy 
to some of the older school piano men and women, but if the rib set 
has been designed appropriately, such an instrument will have a very 
satisfactory tone, and will be likely to continue doing so for 
decades and decades and not just a very few years, as is the case 
with some of the contemporary offerings.

Several of the new pianos we've built had a laminated panel, 
including the piano we exhibited in Rochester in 2006. Here's an 
image of the soundboard for no. 6, just before it was fitted.

http://members.optuszoo.com.au/ronovers/NO6.14.jpg

These boards, with the piano strung and at pitch, remain crowned 
enough for a string line across the underside of the mid-panel to 
nearly clear the height of the soundboard buttons. Crown remains over 
the entire area of the soundboard, without any of the typical 
overloading at the bridge 'lines' and the perimeter of the soundboard.

There's more evolution left in the piano yet. Let's not let the 
stagnation of the past century put us off. Let's make the new piano 
century one for history in the making.

Ron O.
-- 
OVERS PIANOS - SYDNEY
    Grand Piano Manufacturers
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Web http://overspianos.com.au
mailto:ron at overspianos.com.au
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