100 Year Old Piano Soundboards

[Tom OBrien]

I'm a newbee to this board, but I started by building one of Ken's wonderful kits a few years ago. I build from scratch now and I'm working on #9.

I have the enormous pleasure of working in a piano restoration shop where I can use very expensive tools, fixtures and finishing booths, and also tap the 80+ years of musical instrument restoration experience that is represented by the two owners of the business.

On three of my guitars, I have used old (100+ years) piano soundboards. Ed, the owner, has about 200 pianos that he keeps in storage and will likely never get around to restoring. He lets me scavenge for anything I need and soundboards and brace wood are plentiful.

The three guitars each had basic problems associated with their soundboards:
• Removing a piano soundboard from the frame is labor intensive and requires special tools and skill.
• Removing ribs from the piano soundboard without damaging the soundboard is also labor intensive and an art unto itself.
• Piano soundboards are made from 3/8", 4-5" wide boards that are mounted and glued diagonally. There is no way to get the usual book matched look from these boards.
• They can be very dry and brittle and sometimes only certain parts of the board are useable, and sometimes you don't find that out until you start thicknessing the boards.
• They crack easily along the old glue joints.

There are some good things about these soundboards:
• They are aged and dry – that's for sure!
• They have been played in – for years and years
• They sound surprisingly good.

My last few guitars have not been made with piano soundboards because Ed is worried that I won't get the same kind of sound quality out of the old boards. He demonstrated to me the way a note decays much more rapidly on an old piano soundboard than on new ones. I have to say I did notice a clear difference and the sustain on the new boards was better.

I'm wondering if anyone else has had any experience making guitar soundboards out of old scavenged wood? I'd also like to know more about finishing that kind of wood. A high glass clear coat appears to be the worst option. I currently have the piano finisher working on the last of the three on that kind of finish and I think I have him stumped. He's a perfectionist and he just can't seem to make it look the way he wants. I used an old timey flat lacquer finish on one of my guitars and it came out looking antique (in a good way). The picture is below

[John Parchem]

That is really cool. What you have now looks good. I am wonder if you can use a violin spirit varnish with amber and a little brown tint in it fora real aged antique look. It would be a thinner finish than lacquer. You can take any sheen off with steal wool.

[ken cierp]

Hi Tom -- Welcome -- great to have you here

If you get a chance please post some more pictures of your works in the Gallery section. We'd all like to see them.

Don Teeter "the master repairman" wrote about special care for very old sound boards. He actually used a seal coat of Epoxy thinned alchohol, then I believe French polish top coat.

[Kevin in California]

Pretty cool Tom.
We have a 1924 Mason Hamlin Grand in our living room that was totally rebuilt over 20 years ago, and had a 1946 Chickering grand done by the same place about 16 years ago. It is pretty facinating to see this work in process and the final results.
Your guitar looks great. If that is a satiny finish, I think it turned out really nice.
Yes please do share more of your guitars with us.

Kevin

[Tom OBrien]

Thanks John, Ken, and Kevin. I really want to pursue making guitars out of scavenged piano parts. I'm attracted to the environmentally friendly aspects of recycling old wood.

I'm glad you think the guitar looks good. It was certainly the best of the lot. This one ended up in the hands of a 10 year old grandson of one of my co-workers. He was complaining about not being able to reach around a regular sized guitar. This one fit the bill just right, especially after someone told him Sting uses the same model.

The first one was roughly modeled on the Ipomoea model created by Liutaio Mottola. I painted it red because all the wood just looked so raggedy (It was my first time bending the sides and they were scorched a bit afterwards). In the end I called it the "Halloween Guitar" because it was black and red. In spite of its appearance, the owner seems to like how it sounds.

Below are the other two guitars: the frightening Halloween, and the never-ending finish job being done on the J-185.

[Tom OBrien]

I'm going to try that finishing idea with violin spirit varnish with amber and brown tint. That should give them a genuine antique look.