Mandolin Tops From Piano Sound Boards

[David Newton]

Every builder should dismantle a piano for the wood, once. That will be all it takes to dissuade you from a second try. Lots of work for a little wood.
Pick a piano with a wooden frame, not a steel one, quite a bit more wood there.
The soundboard is generally glued up of narrow pieces, so bracing is the main product. There are also piano tone bars that yield larger bits.
The frame is secondary wood, and good for other stuff.

[Red Henry]

A few years ago at SPBGMA I was speaking to Louisiana builder Luke Thompson, and he mentioned that he's used an old piano soundboard for several mandolin tops. He really liked the old wood, but what kind of piano it was, he didn't say.

Red.

[John Arnold]

I have probably dismantled a dozen pianos over the years, and I have never seen a soundboard that wasn't QS. The soundboards are normally about 3/8" thick, and glued up from pieces that are 3" to 6" wide. The soundboard bracing is about 1" square, and works very well for guitar braces or mandolin tone bars. The core material of the case is usually poplar, but I have also seen sycamore and chestnut. The rear support posts can be most anything....spruce, hemlock, and elm are three woods that come to mind. On the last piano, I went the extra mile and got the rock maple pin plank. That meant that I had to unscrew all 220+ tuning pins with a variable speed drill. The pin plank is made of some of the densest, tightest grain maple that I have ever seen. I first heard about recycling the pin plank from Snuffy Smith, who uses it for banjo bridges. I primarily have used it for guitar bridgeplates, and I find it to be similar (if not equal) to Timeless Timber.

[mando bandage]

Here's a story on a piano to mandolin recycler. Nothing conventional about his approach or his instruments, but this is the type of guy that can make music on a comb and a kleenex.

http://www.bucyrustelegraphforum.com...ID=20102110313

R

[Bernie Daniel]

Charles E: The sound boards could be used for flat top mandolins. We helped a neighbor dismantle a piano a few years back, we use the braces for violin-viola sound post stock ( sounds great ) the ebony keys for nuts and saddle's and got a whole box of ivory off the white keys for inlay.

This is a bit tangential to the string but what are the white and black keys made of on modern pianos?