Official Luthiers Forum!

i found a demolished piano in a skip and
was wondering if anyones fimilar with any procedure that needs to be done. the pianos soundboard consists of 3/4 cm thick 4 inch wide planks .
it was stored in a derilict house for at least 20 years and is parting at the edges
would it be nessary to part all of the wood ..
and would it be sutible for a top ? .
also i was wondering if a bridge can be too wide?
thanks tomas.

as you used the word skip and not dumpster I'm guessing you're in the UK?

welcome aboard!!

I've taken two pianos apart and didn't get a lot of useful stuff.

the black ebony keys make good mandolin bridges but that's about it.

the soundboard SHOULD be fine, but you'll need to join all those 4" strips together to make a top, prolly a 4 piece.

no reason why not, I've certainly put "wings" on the edges of tops to get to the widest part of a bout without any diffs, and I've made upt a 5 piece back for a doublenect acoustic.......

_________________
My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

Hey is this a special UK thread!

Sorry to pop in and break up the UK party, but yes, piano soundboard material is great for a
guitar top. As said earlier, though, you'll have to achieve the width needed by joining the pieces.

I have a shelf full of old piano soundboard pieces that I've used for all manner of things. A
close friend has a moving company and you'd be surprised how many folks have old pianos
that they would rather have hauled away and disposed of rather than placed in their new homes.

That explains my shelf full of pieces. A lot of the wood is over 100 years old.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Hi, I'm from the UK too!!!

You also need to inspect piano soundboards thoroughly for damage etc.
Don't ask me how I know this.*coughwoodworm*

If the woods been played in for upto 100 years what'd that do for the tone. I'm assuming the resins sort of crystalise with the vibrations over the years, or would reworking the wood destroy this?

_________________
Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

Being a Piano Tuner/ Tech , I have dismantled quite a few and saved the Spruce ( and ivory , Ebony etc. )

I retrieved what I thought some great Spruce off an old German piano which I did some brace blank deflection testing on. Thinking this may be the ultimate brace wood , I was dissapointed when I found it was no stronger than some new brace wood I had to compare with.

Yes , a lot of old piano soundboards have cracks . On top of that , there's quite a bit of work getting the soundboards out of the things . I've found the planks to between around 4 to 6 inches wide ,or there abouts, mostly fairly broad grain. It means three or four joins for a guitar top . At the end of the day , I can't find anything too magical about recycling piano soundboards , and so buy matched sets of guitar soundboards from our great suppliers. A lot less hassle , and maybe even a better result.
Having said that , I've never actually built a guitar top from these piano boards , so who knows ?? Must remember too , that not all piano soundboards are created equal in quality.

Craig Lawrence
__________________

_________________
CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
_____________________________________________