Piano soundboard

My daughter is learning Piano, so I asked the piano guy. What do you do with old pianos. he says we use some part for replacement and the rest is used for winter fire .

Very kind gentelman, he give me a very old Yamaha piano soundboard.
the result are: a very old sound board, very nice open , straight grains and very aged.

I will start building a new oud, with some old cuban Mahogany or indian rosewood and the new pegbox (see pegbox topic) and this old piano soundboard. the braces are also removed I will use them also underneath the sound board;

I must say, the old hard varnish is hard to remove and dules the scrapers and the thikness sander become very sticky

pictures:

Hi Leon,

Oh yes, the Bosch PTS 10 is the one I use now. it is powerfull enouph even for ebony and kingwood or any hardwood. I use it with thin kerf blade with carbide. 1.7 thick to save some expensive wood. it goes through the wood like a knife in the butter . but it is a dangerous one. I always use push sticks. never get closer than 10cm to the blade

GREAT IDEA, Samir!

Dr. Mamdouh El GEbaly's oud is made from old piano wood. It is an EXCELLENT source of wood for ouds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gzD1Og28h4

Using old piano wood for fire is an "artistic crime"

I hope you will share fils once you are done.

Best Regards,

Hatem

Hatem,

Yes it is a crime. but from 2 big board I could make only two suitable soundboards for oud and some braces.

Two friends (customers) already ordered two indian rosewood ouds with this 2 piano boards.

As soon as I start building I will keep the progress updated. First go on holidays !!! yeep.

So today I went to buy some indian rosewood, when my eyes fall victim of a beautiful Coromandel (Macasar ebony) piece of wood, probably enouph for 2 maybe 3 ouds. it is an expensive type of of wood (here in holland anyway), but I could not resist. at least I have something to look forward for when I'm on vacation.

so I already prepared the neck and peg box parts. and this is how it looks like inside






an exmaple how it should looks like:
very beautiful

wow

Quote: Originally posted by paulO

Hi Samir, Richard Hankey made a top using old (~100 year old) piano soundboard, I think he still has that oud. This was in the mid 1970's, so it's been done, and I belive with pretty good results. Good luck man, and thanks for sharing all your projects. Regards..PaulO

Actually I used pieces from the upright braces of the support frame, not really the soundboard. It was very stiff and wide grained, and may not even be spruce, but it made a nice sounding oud. The wood was so stiff that after I finished the oud it it didn't have much volume, so I removed the brace forward of the bridge, and trimmed off part of the pickguard. So it has only 5 braces. The back is Hawaiin Koa Nut and Lemon wood from Santa Barbara, CA. The current owner is offering it for sale, for info contact Bela at
nitlofb@comcast.net


Other sources of old wood are antique furniture - some old dressers were made with cedar for its aromatic properties, so guitar makers search for old dressers for soundboards. In Iran, santurs are made with walnut soundboards, and many doors in the old village homes were made from walnut, consequently, many of the old doors were harvested by santur makers until the government stepped in to stop the loss of these historical doors.

Isn't the Piano soundboard made of pine wood , which most of the Egyption ouds are made of?? It looks quite like pine wood.

Hello Sam

Everything is possible, pine and spruce are the same familly (spruce, pine, cedar) The Pinaceae family
Pine is more used for buildings, christmas tree, etc.

this one is definitly Spruce, serial number on the board(yamaha), structures of the wood, the smel, the grain..

macassar and Pau Ferro

I have finished cutting the ribs macassar and some very old Brasilian Ironwood ( Pau Ferro). another 4 sets of Indian rosewood for 4 customers are also ready, thiknessed all to 2.6mm.

he are some nice pics of the Macassar and pau feroo:

WAOW
Absolutely wonderful !