I have a very basic question. Is it always necessary to repair cracks in the soundboard? The question occurs to me because of my recent acquisition of an old, beat up, cracked waldzither that just happens to sound pretty nice after being cleaned up and restrung. I see two gaping cracks in the soundboard, two systems of related smaller cracks in the back and a crack or two in the ribs. The bracing in this thing would be suitable for a battering ram and the top and back are firmly attached to same. One top brace runs pretty close to right under the bridge. I don't hear any buzzes, except bass strings on fretboard due to slightly low bridge. I don't detect much if any movement when I push on either side of the cracks.
It is strung up fairly tight using plain old EJ74 strings at 18.5 inch scale to achieve D-A-E-B tuning plus a big fat .059" string for a low G (for a total of nine strings).
I got some photos and will attach.
This instrument is ~110 years old and appears to have been used, abused, then hung up in a coal cellar for a half century.
A video of me showing it off is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RiMdxCq_Mw (starting at the 1:07 mark).
So the question is: do I really need to have those big cracks in the top repaired? Will the instrument sound 'better' if repaired? Will it fall apart if not? I strongly suspect it will last longer than I will whether or not it is repaired, so maybe this is just a question about whether it will sound even better than it does now.
Two pix of sound board plus one of back, all with flash. Note that the 'gouge' marked in blue is almost certainly a crack. These are hi-def, so you can blow them up by clicking on them.
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