He maintains that a piano is simply untunable if a cracked sound board exists, while i posit that it is possible to tune a piano with a cracked sound board. There is a crack in my pianos sound board, caused, i believe, by being stored in an arid place. However if the ribs break off of the panel, you can see this as a gap between the rib and the board from the bottom or a raised portion along a crack on the top, you can develop some very loud buzzing as the rib, panel and glue residue vibrate against each other. Reducing the water content of the wood to a minimal amount before its glued to the rim of the piano helps ensure this. When doing your piano research, i would ask that you suspend judgement about how many support ribs it has, whether its tapered, or hand scraped, or even notched to the inner rim. Caring for these types of injuries require the same treatment. Wagner piano pianos most trusted retailer since 1936. If the cracks have been filled with wooden shims, this means that, at some point, the piano was rebuilt and the cracks repaired.
The upper ribs are protected by the collarbone and shoulder blades. Many times the crack has opened up and the ribs are not still attached to the board under the rib, so you have to work some glue in there and try to clamp it together again. Piano sound board repairing cracks the sound board is a five eighths inch thick wooden board in the back of the piano. A pianos soundboard is one of the most important pieces on a piano. Make sure the ribs are not detached from the sound board at all. The ribs are usually made of spruce, sugar pine, or some other kind of soft wood. Clean, dry scrape, relubricate, transfer, glue to new board.
If it were only a matter of loudly amplifying the sound produced when the hammers strike the strings, a metal plate would have been much more efficient. I put the sound board on a piece of plywood, then used clamps to press the ribs onto the sound board while the. The sounding board reflects and amplifies the tone caused when a hammer hits a string. Any separation of a rib from the soundboard at a crack is a potential source of buzzing noises. Soundboards vary in size depending on how large the piano is. I was wondering if someone out there in piano world can help me settle an argument ive been having with a colleague.
Ribs could be broken or pulled away from the soundboard. Cracks and rib separations are usually repaired at the same time the piano is restrung. Ribs may be broken or pulled away from the soundboard. If the piano is not buzzing during play, perhaps you may just leave it alone. The thorough restoration of your piano is a complex and beautiful thing, and at cantabile, no shortcuts are taken. It is probably the most important part of the piano.
Cracked or fractured ribs are essentially broken ribs, but are not as dangerous as a rib that has broken into pieces, which could pierce vital organs 1. I going to try to fix a crack in the soundboard of my chickering while i have the strings off. The ribs beneath the soundboard must be firmly attached at all points to. I dont think my piano is worth anythingthe soundboard is cracked. As long at the sound board hasnt come unglued from the ribs, there is a good chance you wont even know the difference. Repairing or replacing a pianos soundboard bradfield piano. Bridges that are broken, split or cracked are a major expense to have repaired.
When choosing whether to repair or replace your soundboard, its important to consider the level of damage. You can glue the board back onto a rib, if they have separated, but that is a much more entailed process. Sounding board may be cracked, or worse yet, may have lost its crown to become totally deficient. I neglected to cut the profile into the ribs beforehand, but this had the advantage that i can leave the locations where the ribs join all square for more contact area. Using patterns from the old board the bridges are reconstructed to proper height and placement for the bridge pins. For this reason, a crack in the soundboard reduces the soundboard s ability to amplify the vibrations of the strings only in relation to how much of the surface area the crack reduces the vibrating area of the board. The ends of the ribs are tapered to ensure that the edge of the sideboard does not become too rigid. If splits in the soundboard do produce certain rattling or vibrating sounds, it is enough to place a wedge in the crack, otherwise, one must send the piano to a factory or repair shop to have the sound board replaced or properly repaired.
It also allows for humidity changes to occur in the wood with reduced forces that can lead to cracks. Like a hifi speaker, a sounding board is a vibrating diaphragm. Once the board has been shaped, it is time to build and attach the new ribs and bridges. Most being 1921 and most with cracked sound boards. Eventually the wood gets old and mushy, the felts get stiff and hard, the metal fatigues and breaks, humidity can rust everything, and the wooden exterior can delaminate, buckle, split, warp, and separate. Greeb, the proper repair for the soundboard crack, if warranted, is a spruce shim. I cant count the number of times someone has said to me. To know the symptoms of a cracked rib, first we need to know a little about the ribs and what causes a cracked or fractured rib. Graymarket pianos and cracked soundboards pianobuyer.
I purchased an old upright kimball piano from a lady across town. Listen to handyczech, he has the same thoughts that i do. Piano soundboards chernobieff piano restorations home. Hoekstra pianos in christchurch is the sth islands largest piano shop, specializing in near new and reconditioned pianos. In an upright piano, the sound board is a large vertical plate at the back of the instrument. I need you to take a look at this piano and tell me if i should buy it. So youve noticed the soundboard of your piano has a crack. This can allow the soundboard to rattle against the loose rib as it. Sounding board may be cracked or worse yet, may have lost crown to become tonally deficient. Like the top of a stradivarius violin, the soundboard is the wood beneath all the strings and plate of the piano which gives it its unique quality of sound.
Each panel comes out dead flat and needing no further sanding. Piano soundboard restoration is an exacting and timed honed process. How costly is it to fixed a cracked sound board in a piano. Note the vintage piano owned was a kimball upright the piece so heavy that it took 6 men to move it so yes these pianos metal soundboards were usually replaced to.
Broken, cracked and bruised ribs exhibit similar symptoms, although broken and fractured ribs will hurt a good deal more than bruised ribs and will take much longer to heal 1. The sound board, depending on the instrument, is called a top plate, table, soundtable, or belly. No real music can come out of a conventional piano except through the sounding board. What is a sound board how to check your piano sound board. If you open up the lid of either your upright or grand piano and look down, you will see a shiny piece of wood that runs the down the back or the bottom of the instrument.
Salvaging and recycling pianos petrichs piano shop. In contrast, the soundboard that translates their energy into a rich, resonant sound is made of wood. It takes an experienced rebuilder to determine if a soundboard needs. The sounding board could be cracked or may have lost crown. It is also one of the main reasons that a cracked soundboard will buzz when played at certain frequencies. I am a player piano repair man and all of the pianos i work with were made before 1930.
Do i need to be very worried if i find cracks in the sound board of a very old piano. It had sounded fine at her house, but the acoustics were different in her small living room. As the vibrations are conducted by the ribs which are at right angles to the planks, the tone is hardly effected unless the soundboard becomes detached from the ribs. The ribs are also placed in the hot box, and together with the soundboard, they are conditioned. May be cracked or broken which cripples the piano musically and renders it useless. Salvaging and recycling pianos there is a point of no return for pianos. However, the movers brought it over last week, i played it, and it sounded bad. Avoid like the plague any piano with pins that have apparently been pounded. A flawlessly flat board provides a perfect glue joint surface for the ribs. When an original soundboard needs restoration, we evaluate the board to ensure structural integrity, hand sand it and repair any damage utilizing our special methods.
May be cracked or worse yet, may have lost its crown to become tonally deficient. The ribs stiffen the soundboard, strengthening the sidetoside gluing of the individual soundboard planks which are only threeeighths of an inch thick. When a piano is restrung it is normal for the soundboard. They are contained in tight spaces, controlled by the many parts that make up the. This indicates that the piano could have been in a flood in the past, which could in turn cause rustiness on strings and sounding board cracks. It is the best sounding board, but with age, it can crack. It picks up the vibration of the strings via the bridges, with a life span determined mostly by the fluctuation and level of humidity over the decades. The sides of the crack are touching or almost touching, but are displaced vertically about an eight of an inch. All stringed instruments have some type of soundboard most are built directly into the body of the instrument, such as the violin or the harp. The soundboard is a large, thin wooden plate which acts as an amplifier of the sound produced by the vibrating strings its purpose is to radiate a large volume of sound over a wide frequency range.
Bridges may have lost proper bearing, be broken, split or cracked, necessitating a major expense. In this case, consult with a professional piano technician. This is done so that the board will not continue to shrink after installation in the piano. Soundboard cracks pianotech piano technicians guild. The ribs run perpendicular to the grain of the soundboard, and therefore perpendicular to any cracks. The traditional sound board is made of several five eighths thick boards which are glued side by side across the whole inside of the piano. Ribs are added to stiffen the board and to help preserve the crown. Bass strings may be tired and tubby, totally devoid of tone. As long as the structure of the soundboard remains solid, with ribs and. Hairline cracks are a normal part of the aging process in most parts of the country. Even a very bad board will still act as a transducer.
The sounding board acts as the speaker of the piano. Piano lessons how to buy a piano what is a sound board. A cracked sounding board may or may not be serious. Underneath the soundboard panel are the ribs which move the energy across the grain of the panel and support the crown or upward bowing of. It would better to find where the cracks cross any ribs and make sure that the board to rib joint is still solid. I want to be sure the soundboard isnt crackedi dont want a. The piano tech guys tells me it is not really a problems since the sound board is not seperated from the frame or ribs and isnt causing any significant change to the sound. The sound board is a five eighths inch thick wooden board in the back of the piano. Perhaps it looks less like a smooth, machined piece of carpentry and more like a freight pallet. As long as the edges of the crack do not make a rattling sound by vibrating, it really isnt that problematic.
So that it will vibrate freely, a sounding board is necessarily a very thin panel, usually from 316 to 38 of an inch thick. The heart and soul of your piano is its soundboard. This is when the board should be fully inspected and its condition evaluated. On the back of it, it has one inch ribs which stabilize it by running against the grain of the sound board. Rlpe piano technician paul hansen is restoring an old mendelssohn upright and gives a little walk through about repairing a soundboard with loose ribs. Antique and traditional piano soundboard and pinblock repair. Ribs with natural internal stresses will arch into a 60 radius arch. Soundboard technology is a much greater science than just a board its a system of acoustics fully integrated with the piano so that the average listener will. Like the speaker of a radio, a pianos sounding board is a vibrating diaphragm. Base strings may be tired and tubey totally devoid of tone. Robert estrins tips on purchasing a piano music vision studios. The significance of soundboard cracks on pianos youtube.
Ribs are classified into three categories according to their location inside the body. Unless you have repaired a cracked soundboard before, we. In a grand piano, the sound board is part of the case. Sometimes when the soundboard gets cracks in it, the ribs come unglued from it in places.
The bridges function is primarily to transmit the sound of the strings to the soundboard, which is the. Steinway uses sugar pine ribs, and others will use spruce ribs. I inherited the piano and want to keep it in good shape and fix up the major problems. At times the ribs underneath the piano attached to the sounding board may be. This can result in cracks and loose soundboard ribs. A piano with a cracked soundboard should be carefully checked for rib separations before purchase. May be cracked or worse yet, may have lost crown to become tonally deficient. After decades of constant pressure from the strings and varying environmental conditions, the soundboard inside of a steinway piano can crack, become loose from the supporting ribs and it may lose its crown. New york city,westchester,long island,connecticut,new jersey. I had it looked at and i was told the sound board was cracked.