August Förster soundboard

[the bfg]

I’m considering buying a 205cm August Förster from the twenties. I played on it and I find it very very satisfying. It had been renewed about ten years ago. Strings and tuning pins, hammers and felts, and keytops are like new, as is the finish. What makes me uncertain is that the soundboard has been repaired. There are two major cracks, which have been filled with glue (visible here: https://www.piana.cz/aff.jpg if you zoom in), and the soundboard is now screwed to the ribs. I will surely take an independent expert for a final inspection. Does anybody have the experience that repaired soundboards are prone to further damage? Would you be put off by a cracked, albeit repaired, soundboard?

[G.Fiore]

 You say the cracks have been filled with glue  ::)and  screws  through the ribs into the board. Glue is not a proper repair. The cracks should have been shimmed and the soundboard refinished, that is if the board was in good enough condition to be saved.
 This sounds like very sloppy workmanship. I'd stay away.

[iumonito]

I agree with Curry with one caveat, can you bargain about $10,000 off the price because you will have to replace the soundboard.

Once you have it home, you can decide whether to change the board now or later.

[the bfg]

Thanks for your reactions. Sadly for me , they are irrelevant  because I'm utterly stupid , as I failed to describe the repair job accurately. Of course it's been shimmed! What was I thinking about when I wrote that the cracks were filled just with glue? I must get this woman out of my mind--    Anyway,  I've found a trustworthy expert who'll assess the quality of the repair for me. My question to you is rather general. How seriously disadvantaged is a piano with a cracked soundboard, assuming the cracks are repaired correctly? How likely will the soundboard crack again in the next twenty years if it is kept in a favourable climate?

[hrschlosser]

It's not going to crack again if it was dried carefully and if you can keep the environment for the piano stable. If the board had a good sound before the repair and it still has good crown chances are that the piano can have a good sound for many years to come. If the board was dead before the repair the shims in the cracks probably won't bring back any life.

Jens

[rich_galassini]

Briefly, shimmimg is the proper repair for a small crack that bothers you aesthetically, but does absolutely nothing to improve the performance of the soundboard. The exception is that it POSSIBLY may stop buzzes related to the wood moving away from ribs or between the edges of the crack.

Have the piano examined by someonewho has some structural repair experience.

Good Luck,

[Piazzo22]

I think you should go for it! It was the best generation of AF (Löbau) piano making.

[Piazzo22]

Oh, and don´t bother about the cracks filled with glue. It doesn´t make any difference.

[hrschlosser]

Piazzo22,

what you write is complete nonsense. While I agree that August Förster had better and worse times in their history it will be very obvious that the best AF pianos are those which were produced after 1990 to this day. Those from the 1920ies were great instruments when new but it is the question how much of this greatness is still alive today in such an old instrument if it was not repaired properly.

"Oh, and don´t bother about the cracks filled with glue. It doesn´t make any difference."

Well, fortunately as for the piano in this discussion we were told that the cracks were not filled with glue but your comment shows that you don't have the slightest idea what are appropriate methods to repair a soundboard and for that reason you should better be quiet if it comes to discuss things which you don't understand. You might misguide someone whith your information which is in fact misinformation.

While a soundboard repair like shimming the cracks may indeed not improve the tone much (if any at all), it is clear that the crack would open again if only glue was used to fill the crack. If a rebuilder would use such technologies to repair a piano, I'd wonder how much attention he'd put into other important details of piano rebuilding and how much knownledge he'd have about rebuilding a piano.

Jens

[thalberg]

I know a super awesome piano technician who has worked at a big concert hall and dealt with all the pros that came to the big city where I lived.  I was looking at a piano he was selling, and he said the sound board had cracks and that he had repaired them with shims.  They were big cracks--you could really see them.  It was a Steinway from the late 1800s.  Anyway, he said this was the first time in his whole life he had ever repaired a soundboard.  (In the past he had always replaced them).  He said that this soundboard turned out so well, with such a good sound, that he's considering trying this again sometime.  Hope that helps.

[thalberg]

By the way, that "filling the holes with glue" thing had me falling out of my chair laughing.  When you said you had to get this woman out of your mind, who were you talking about?

[the bfg]

I'm glad I made you laugh but I won't answer your question. By the way, I didn't buy the piano in the end because the dealer sold it to someone else despite he promised he would wait a week. I had to cancel an appointment with an independent technician. The dealer obviously wasn't confident about the state of the instrument. I suspect it might have been bought by a state-owned music school to which it was recommended by one of his friends. Never mind, I'll find a good piano in time and from a trustworthy dealer. Thanks for your reactions and forgive me for my silly mistake.

[jeremyjchilds]

THe term re-built can mean a whole lot of things to different people...

[piazzo23]

Piazzo22,

what you write is complete nonsense. While I agree that August Förster had better and worse times in their history it will be very obvious that the best AF pianos are those which were produced after 1990 to this day. Those from the 1920ies were great instruments when new but it is the question how much of this greatness is still alive today in such an old instrument if it was not repaired properly.

"Oh, and don´t bother about the cracks filled with glue. It doesn´t make any difference."

Well, fortunately as for the piano in this discussion we were told that the cracks were not filled with glue but your comment shows that you don't have the slightest idea what are appropriate methods to repair a soundboard and for that reason you should better be quiet if it comes to discuss things which you don't understand. You might misguide someone whith your information which is in fact misinformation.

While a soundboard repair like shimming the cracks may indeed not improve the tone much (if any at all), it is clear that the crack would open again if only glue was used to fill the crack. If a rebuilder would use such technologies to repair a piano, I'd wonder how much attention he'd put into other important details of piano rebuilding and how much knownledge he'd have about rebuilding a piano.

Jens

If the cracks are open but filled, they will not open again. I´ve got an AF upright from that generation. And if there´s no buzzing you will be happy