I am currently restoring a William de Blaise Cembalo Transverso harpsichord. (A customer gave it to me and I could not pass on it.) I'm at the point where I need to decide a course of action with the fine cracks in the soundboard. I plan to carefully dry the board down a bit tomorrow to see if they open a bit more. For the most part, right now there is only a very small amount of see through separation. At the belly rail the board measures about 2.5mm.
So, I have a couple of what would you do questions: would you dry down the board and shim the crack with a wood shim or, fill it with a good epoxy? If I go with a wood shim, where can I get good spruce for the job?
I tried an epoxy fill on a piano board years ago but I have not seen that piano in a long time. It was holding the last I saw the piano but who knows now. I could use a bit of faring filler to give the epoxy some color. In any case, this looks to be a bit of a challenge as I have no experience filling soundboard cracks on a harpsichord. Ah, give me a Challis aluminum board any day. Just kidding!
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[Don] [McKechnie,] [RPT]
[Piano Technician]
[
dmckech@ithaca.edu]
[Home 607.277.7112]
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