Do you dry the ribs, along with the board, prior to gluing ?

[Richard Brekne]

Hi Thump


    This is fun !!! This is a  suggestion I made years ago, on this
    list, and was roundly "poo-pooed" (as usual ) if I remember correctly.

Probably wasn't politically correct at the time

    So, then, who's refined this technique and put it into practice, and
    where can I read about their discoveries ???

I haven't tried it out yet... just had a couple ways of going about it 
described to me. Contact Ron Overs if you want more info as he is the 
one who first suggested this to me.

    And should I use sugar pine, spruce, maple or what for the added
    lamination ?

Sugar pine was suggested to me, tho I have an idea that perhaps using 
the same wood as your existing ribs might be a good idea.


    And what kind of glue ?  ( I was thinking epoxy would have minimal
    creep, but then, if the rib and addition were dowelled together
    (maybe with bamboo skewers ) the couldn't "skid" overeach other, at
    all.

I'd think that this would definitely be an application where you dont 
want any creep... however you go about it.


    Thump


    P.S. This 57" Ivers and Pond upright has very wide ribs,  with
    nearly flat tops and a lot of room behind the posts, so it's tempting !

Go for it... if there is room. How much room do you have to work in btw 
? I don't know what your budget is on this... but if its one of those 
jobs you can easily experiment with then I'd say renew the glue joint 
between ribs and soundboard, figure how much new support you think you 
need from rib extenders and make them to appropriate dimensions, jack up 
the soundboard a bit and glue them on. Leave for several days to insure 
a complete cure.  Then fill your soundboard cracks in your preferred 
manner. Since you no doubt have this thing strung down and the plate off 
you should be able to get a very reasonable estimation of the 
re-finished assembly strength. Figure how much down bearing you are 
going to end up with and make sure the thing can hold it. You can easily 
enough work all this into your scaling spreadsheet.

All this said.... its probably easier and better to just knock out the 
old panel and put in a new one.  But it might cost you a bit more.

Cheers
RicB