Constructing a top quality piano soundboard is expensive & time consuming. A properly built soundboard is constructed with what is known as crown or a slight dome shaped curvature to the top of the board. This crown is absolutely vital to the quality & vibrancy of a piano’s tonal character. A Piano of 50 to 100 years of age has lost some & usually all of its crown due to string pressure, age & wood deformation & hence, tonal sustain & power are diminished & unmusical.

Our boards contain the best materials money can buy. Our soundboard panels are made from tight grain Sitka spruce. This species of spruce has the highest weight to strength ratio of all the spruces. The individual planks of our soundboard panels are joined with tongue & groove construction. This gives superior strength characteristics to the overall panel.

Our “variable radius soundboard” designs uses a combination of rib materials & varying degrees of radius cut into the ribs to support the crown. This extra rib/crown support gives the soundboard the strength to resist the 1000 + pounds of string load over the life of the piano. This type of design is far more resistant to soundboard failures due to extreme climatic environments & string bearing loads than traditional “compression crowned” soundboards.

Our rib materials are tight grain, hand selected, lightweight sugar pine, white spruce or denser Sitka spruce. We use one or both of these woods depending on the size & requirements of the soundboard being designed. In smaller pianos we most commonly use Sugar pine in the bass end of the panel for flexibility & the stiffer spruce in the treble portion to drive the higher frequencies. This custom rib selection gives adequate strength & flexibility ratios for the specific tonal requirements of the treble & bass.

Our “variable radius soundboard” design is achieved by cutting tighter radii in the ribs. The treble ribs, which are shorter, have a tighter radius so that extra support is given to the treble where higher amounts of string pressure will be exerted. All our ribs are glued to the panel in a custom made pneumatic soundboard press that insure even & consistent glue pressure on each square inch of the rib to soundboard panel glue joint. The soundboard press deck has a concave surface that bends the rib & crown radius further enhancing the soundboard crown radius.

Each soundboard is also carefully thinned at the edges. This is a procedure that is often skipped by some to cut costs. This process however reduces stiffness at the edges and allows increased soundboard flexibility enhancing tonal clarity & power. I consider it very important. This process is called diaphramizing. This is a term first introduced & utilized by Steinway & Sons in the 1800’s & copied by most prominent piano makers.

Our modern & efficient pneumatic soundboard press allows us to glue on all the rib supports to the soundboard panel all at once & without any screws or other mechanical fasteners while it in its critical dried down condition. When inflated the firehoses in this device provide a uniform pressure of 45 psi. on square inch of the rib to sound board glue joint insuring flawless glue joints. The deck of the press has a 45 ft curvature designed in it to help induce crown in the finished sound board assembly.

Our custom designed & built press is a huge piece of our belly work equation & built specifically to produce our “Variable Radius soundboard design” The crown in our soundboards is primarily rib supported, meaning the crown, which is cut into the ribs increases in radius as the treble ribs get shorter thereby increasing crown & Stiffness. Predictable crown means a predictable tone, soundboard life & a repeatable design for a given model.