US7494A - Sounding-board foe - Google Patents

Description

C. MEYER. SOUNDING BOARD.

No '7 494. Patented July 9, 1850.

If l UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

C. MEYER, OF PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

SOUNDING-'BOARD FOR PIANOS.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 7,494, dated July 9, 1850.

To all whom t may concern.'

Be it known that I, CONRAD MEYER, of the city and county of Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania, have invented a new and useful Improvement in the Sounding- Boards of Musical Stringed Instruments, such as Pianos, Violins, Violoncellos, Bass Viols, &c.; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making a part of this specification.

Figure l, is a top view of the sounding board of a piano, as improved by me, Fig. 2, a view of its under side, and Fig. 3, a vertical longitudinal section through the center of the same.

Similar letters indicate like parts in all the figures.

The nature of my invention consists in supporting the bridge C, (on which the strings rest) upon a thin auxiliary piece of board B, secured over an opening formed in the ordinary sounding board A, substantially as represented in the drawings. The length and width of the opening in the sounding board covered by the auxiliary board B, may be varied as may be found expedient in practice. In pianos, the opening in the sounding board may extend the entire length of the bridge, or only under that portion of it on which the bass strings rest.

The auxiliary board B, that supports the bridge C, over the opening formed in the ordinary sounding board, can be made very thin, and yet have suflicientA stiness, in consequence of the short distance between its supports: this t-hin bridge board will therefore vibrate more sensitively, and consequently cause a fuller and more perfect tone to be produced with an instrument in which it is introduced, than can be produced with an instrument constructed in the usual manner, where the bridge rests directly on the sounding board. The bass notes in particular, in an instrument having my improved sounding board, have nearly double the power that they have in an instrument constructed in the usual manner.

The value of my improvement in the sounding boards of pianos, has been fully tested by experiment. An instrument supplied with one of my improved sounding boards, has been standing in my ware-room for the past eight weeks; during which time it has been fully tested by the best judges. The superiority of the tone of the instrument has been always noticed at t-he first touch upon the keys, and the universal verdict has been that this instrument is superior in its tone to every other of similar cost, that the performers have ever played upon. The sounding board A, may be composed of two parts, one in each side of the opening under the bridge base B, and be united to each other by means of the bridge board.

Having thus fully described my improvement in the sounding boards of musical stringed nstrumentS, What I claim therein'f as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

The supporting the bridge (C,) upon a thin base piece (B,) secured over an opening formed in the ordinary sounding board, (A,) substantially in the manner and for the purpose as herein set forth.

The above specification signed and witnessed this 10th day of May 1850.

' CONRAD MEYER.

Vitnesses:

Z. C. ROBBINS, J @HN SGHWEHZER,

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