I purchase my soundboard panels from A. Bolduc, Quebec, Canada. Mr Bolduc personally selects the trees to be cut, cuts them only when they are dormant, and mills the lumber at his own facility. He then hand selects the wood he uses , which is quarter sawn, very straight, clear and close grained. About 5% of the log is suitable for soundboard wood. Before gluing up the panels, the wood is color matched as well. This glued up raw soundboard panel is one VERY expensive piece of wood. When it arrives at my shop, this 5/16" thick panel of Eastern White Spruce is over sized and needs to be fit into the piano.
The first step is to orient the grain direction of the new panel. The old panel is placed on top and positioned so that the grain orientation of the wood on both panels matches. The the old board is then used to trace the outline of the panel onto the new wood. A scroll saw is used to cut the over sized panel down to size...well actually, almost down to size, as I want the new panel to still be slightly oversize so that I can carefully fit it into the piano rim. I use an electric sander to remove wood from the edge of the panel until it fits snugly around the rim sides while it rests on the rim shelf. This work all needs to be done with the wood at a specific EMC (5% in my shop) as the wood will change dimensionally with moisture content changes.
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