I'm not sure if I should post this here or in the regular Piano forum. I'm in the process of designing a stand my digital piano (Casio PX-120), and want it to somewhat resemble an upright acoustic piano including a fallboard. Now, not having access to a variety of acoustics, I have to rely on pictures online.

I'm currently working on the fallboard design. There appears to be two main types of fallboards -- single hinged, and double hinged. The double hinged ones initially fold in half, then the whole thing folds into the piano leaving a flush face. The single hinged ones lift up and sit at an angle leaning against the upper part of the piano. I'm leaning towards the single-hinged design as it would be a bit easier to build.

Now, from the pictures, it appears that the single hinged fallboards have a wood strip on the inside that serves as a sheet music holder. It also looks like this strip can fold out on hinges. Is that the case? If so, how does it stay in the folded position when you close the fallboard? Are the hinges sprung loaded, or do they lock in place somehow? Also it looks like the sheet music wouldn't be held completely flush due to it hitting against the lip at the edge of the fallboard. Is this the case with most traditional designs?

Also, by having the sheet music holder on the inside of the fallboard, does that put the music at a comfortable eye level, or are the designs with a stand that sits higher up better?

Thanks.

I don't have an upright, so I can't help much on this.
Maybe you should post on the 1st most popular forum, the (acoustic) piano forum. There upright owner can tell which design they like or dislike and why.
Also, because you are not constraint by the large sound board, harp and strings, you don't have to restrain you to the current upright designs.
But just my 2 cents: most of the uprights and littel console pianos I have played on have in my opinion, the music holder placed too low. Now my 8 years old might disagree.

Perhaps you can simply find an upright to use as a donor? There are usually plenty on CL that would cost less than the wood to make your own. Designing your fallboard to be a soft fall design would be cool as well.

I finally found some descriptions of the integrated music holder on the inside of the fallboard on one of the other forums. Apparently it is called a "music desk". And it looks like that this is an unpopular design for some people. I think I've decided to use a bi-fold design, where the fallboard folds in half on one hinge, then the whole unit folds into the back of the cabinet, into a box behind the keyboard. The top of this box will hold a music stand similar to one of these: www.misterstandman.com/piano.htm (or I might decide to put a full cabinet on the top of the back box to hold materials).

Seems like you have solved your problem, but I can answer this earlier question. The answer is very high-tech: stiff hinges. There is enough friction there to hold the music rest in whatever position you place it in -- even with the fallboard closed.

On the issue of music rest placement it seems to me the answer is as low as possible. You don't want to be craning your neck to read the top line of music. Some of us like to look at the music and our hands, so again low is better.

Another factor to consider is that you don't want to catch your fingers on the rest during normal (or even abnormal!) playing.

The acoustic piano I checked (an English "Knight") has the music rest when in use about 5 inches above the surface of the keys and set back a little -- that suits me.

Thanks bruceee. That's the exact info I'm looking for.

BTW, in case anyone's wondering, I picked up a sheet of MDF from Lowes today, and am starting to make my initial cuts. Already drew up the plans and measurements, so it is just a matter of running the saw across it a bunch of times, then assembling it. I'll try to take some pictures during the process so I can document it here. My first run is going to fit a bit loose (it will be about 3 inches or so wider than my Casio so that I can reach the power button on the side). Once I validate that everything fits ok, I'll take it apart and route out the holes on the sides needed to allow the PX-120 to slide in (similar to Casio's stand). I'll post pictures and scale drawings when they are ready, along with the carpentry tricks I used to come up with the plans.