Very interesting reading Richard.
For all of my experience which is just a little help, I am going through 
in making retirement a period of much mind changing!I now have time with 
my last two instruments at hand to research the way tone and focus is 
achieved and I am finding it very enjoyable.Experience teaches you to 
read wood better and I can honestly say callipers have not been used on 
soundboards for the last thirty odd years by me; they are restricted to 
my turning work.It is important to learn the feel and flex of soundboard 
materials and a lot of that comes from the way the tree has grown and 
been converted.They split the logs to be sure of getting lateral 
quartering and that would give you maximum control of flex and 
strength.But again these details are not totally accentual as many will 
tell you having made soundboards off the quarter or even in the slab.At 
the end of the day I really think it comes down the mass and where you 
have left wood and taken it away.Some people have the ability to produce 
good musical sound from orange boxes, creates despair for us that have 
spent a life time trying to achieve!!!
MJ



On 29/01/2016 00:58, Richard Schaumloffel wrote:
> Measuring and using soundboard thickness data from an old instrument for me has always been a bit of a vexed question. I am a compulsive user of the caliper gauge when I plane soundboards even If I am not sure If I can relate it to absolute stiffness along and across the grain because of the possible variation of the chosen tonewood. I don't have Michaels experience because of my much smaller output so I think there is no harm in calipering your soundboard and recording the measurements in case you want to build that model again.  You have more of that tonewood from the same log so you can replicate its tonal character. I will get around to repeating a testing program on the variation in long grain stiffness of samples of tonewood which will give me some indication in the relationship between stiffness and thickness.
>
> My background was Laboratory science so my approach to building ( science) may not be everyone's cup of tea it nevertheless works for me. Interestingly the great Italian violin makers thicknessed their soundboards and backs using calipers and other devices as shown by Stradivari's tool kit and marks shown on the insides of bellys and backs. As far as I know violin makers up to the present day have always followed this tradition.
>
> Back to the Goermanns/Taskin ,the thickish soundboard may account for its exceptionally rich and complex tone, although there could be a risk of a copy turning out sounding a bit wiry.
>
> Richard
>


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Note:  opinions  expressed on HPSCHD-L are those of the  individual con-
tributors and not necessarily  those of the list owners  nor of the Uni-
versity of Iowa.  For a brief  summary of list  commands, send mail to
[log in to unmask]  saying  HELP .
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::