Humidity and the Piano Sounding Board

I was in conversation with a colleague of mine a while back; we got onto the topic of humidity, and how the changes in humidity affect the wooden structure of the piano.  An observation was made about how piano owners at times do not fully comprehend the amount of movement that happens to a piano when there are humidity changes from season to season.

 I was invited to attend his shop last summer to witness the results of performing experiments on humidity impact and how this changes the position of the sounding board and bridges.

Several jigs were set up to replicate a section of  the piano soundboard and  ribs that hold the sounding board in place. Then, over a period of time, these experiments were completed and the data recorded by local colleague Jack Houweling.

I have changed the watermark on the photos to reflect Jack's work as none of the jigs or experiments were done by myself. I assisted with picture taking and other tasks.

 

Here is the link for the photos of Jack’s experiments…..left click on any photo to enlarge and read the text included.

Humidity Impact

Also included here is a link from a technical forum about this topic.This is a direct link to the forum topic.

Forum Discussion on Humidity Impact