Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum When did crowned soundboards begin to be used?

Kurtman,

Steinway Patent US 2,051,633 April 18th 1936 "Sound Board" will give you a rough idea of the diaphramatic sound board they are referring to.

Rich, you are making a strong claim regarding circumstances in the shop you personally, as a salesman, are observing.

For the purposes of reference, I would like even one serial number and some documentation of your claim.

BTW, I will include this documentation in the material I am collecting for Bill Shull.

Your point is well made with the exception that it seems to lump all types of soundboard design together in one fundamental category. The real goal in soundboard design is to achieve a certain stiffness-to-weight ratio that is compatible with the character of the stringing scale. If the original design depended significantly on the compression stiffness of the soundboard panel—and the resultant crown—to achieve its necessary system stiffness than that crown is important. At least as an indicator; when the crown is gone it is an indication (along with the accompanying change in the sound of the piano) that a certain—and necessary—amount of its initial stiffness is also gone.

Other types of soundboard systems—those depending on the stiffness of appropriately designed ribs—do not share this dependency on system crown.




This is a characteristic of speakers as well; when the energy source stops sending (electrical) energy into the system the speaker stops producing sound energy. So it is with the piano soundboard system; when the strings stop sending (mechanical) energy into the system the soundboard stops producing sound energy. Speaker diaphragms also consume energy (friction in the surround and spider and air) and recycle energy (through various resonances). The function of the piano soundboard system is very similar.

ddf

Larry,

Of course I sell, but I have a sales staff that do this full time. As owner of a company that has a 12,000 sq. ft. restoration shop, a full compliment of outside service people, a moving company, a retail store, and a church organ consultation business, I cannot sell full time and I need a working knowledge of all of these aspects of our business.

My love though is the acoustic piano and the restoration center is what drew me into this business in the first place.

I am passionate about learning about it. I always have been. I am involved in decisions in all of our major projects, in production forecasts, and in costing and budgeting for our restoration projects. I have also, along with my partner Tim Oliver, changed the way we do restoration since becoming owners.

I know that does not make me a rebuilder, but I am finding your comments about being a salesman abrasive. Perhaps you didn't mean them that way. Sorry.

Anyway, I will see about getting any documentation tomorrow morning. As you know, I admire Bill's work and would enjoy helping his work in any small way that I can.

Rich,

The documentation would be very good to have. Photo's especially as it clearly documents the observations you mention. Bill will be pleased to have things such as this, especially if it shows the features you mention.

For future reference, it is important to document as much of the original piano as possible. Features such as the beveled inner rim or curved belly rail are important.

Also, preserving any original parts, as artifacts, that have been removed with serial numbers and model's If you do not have room or inclination to store them, there are some Bill and I would like to have and preserve for study and reference.

Well, in truth, Speakers, especially the full-range type used for musical instruments, do not stop producing sound immediately after signal is removed, since they do have resonances, although slight

..another element to consider is that the Speaker is designed from the ground-up to minimize distortion and enhance linearity, in an effort to convert the electric signal waveform into it's corresponding sound..

the pistonic motion of the speaker cone, the shape of the cone, the suspension system of spider and the suspension on the rim of the cone, are all in function of an 'ideal' representation of the waveform..

with Pianos, from a high-fidelity point-of-view, we have a terrible transducer, which does not aim to follow the input waveform linearly, but instead it creates a 'sound' based on the way the soundboard interacts with the string.. including regeneration.

Let me know by email, pm, or by phone what you think you and Bill would have interest in and we are happy to help if we can.

All the best,

Rich,

Steinway from the very beginning to 1884.

Any older instrument prior to 1884

Photo's.,

Plan view, parallax corrected top and bottom of the piano.
Plan view along the same lines of the action bass and treble side, front and top.

Scale measurments, strike distance from the agraffe, capo or otherwise front termination.

As you mentioned the possibility of a beveled inner rim .. photographs of that.

Photographs of anything and everything of interest.

Document the action, orignal key ratio's, spread, weights of parts by sections.

As far as parts from these pianos? Everything. We are interested in all of it.

If you must remove the sound board ... as intact as possible is important. Removing the bridges as carefully as possible.

We will take everything you are not inclined to keep.


Best thing, contact either myself or Bill if you have something coming up.

Bill and I just flew down to San Antonio TX to document an 1868 8' or so Steinway grand in original condition.

We feel it is that important that we pd for the flight, bought lighting specifically for that occasion ... just to spend a day with that piano.