There was a guy in Holland who developed an acrylic soundboard. From what I was told, he tried to sell his idea to several different manufactures, but the manufacturer wanted full control of the invention. and the guy didn't want to loose his patent. I don't know if he still around. He made a CD, which I had at one time. The piano sounded a little hollow. I also has a piano that had a steel soundboard. It belonged to a customer in St. Louis, who gave me the patent information. That piano, and another one, were made by some one in Sweden. A number of years ago I mentioned this on Pianotech, and a piano tuner from Sweden said he tuned the other one. The interesting thing about this piano was that it sounded just like one of those steel drum bands from the Caribbean. I took pictures of the piano while it was still in my shop, but after the piano was delivered, someone stole the camera. I couldn't go back to the customer because they were mad at me for charging as much as I did to repair the piano. (But that's another story). Wim -----Original Message----- From: Qshooterq <Qshooterq at aol.com> To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Sat, Sep 25, 2010 8:46 am Subject: [pianotech] plastic boards - was soundboard graffiti In about 1970, Rippen pianos was quite bold with their pianos. In addition to reverse threaded tuning pins and reverse crowns, they also made some with plastic soundboards. Maybe someone else remembers better than me. --Tom Gorley In a message dated 9/24/10 9:24:33 PM, dahechler at att.net writes: Weirder yet, cover to soundboard with a thin layer of plastic. That should keep in the humidity and help keep the soundboard from cracking? Even more weirder, make the soundboard out of plexiglass - then it will never break and yet still be flexible. Which that may not sound so weird after all. In the old Edison phonographs, what was the vibrating diaphragm made of ? Duaine Weirder yet, cover to soundboard with a thin layer of plastic. That should keep in the humidity and help keep the soundboard from cracking? Even more weirder, make the soundboard out of plexiglass - then it will never break and yet still be flexible. Which that may not sound so weird after all. In the old Edison phonographs, what was the vibrating diaphragm made of ? Duaine -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech.php/attachments/20100925/d7acb46b/attachment.htm>
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