Best Day So Far.

By the title of this entry you can probably guess that I'm feeling very pleased with myself.

For a few weeks now I've been looking at the piano and trying to work out how to remove the pin block. For those who don't know, the pin block is the plank of laminated wood that stretches from the left to the right of the piano. It sits under the metal plate and its job is to take the tuning pins. The tuning pins are hammered into it then are turned slightly every time it is tuned. The pin block does deteriorate after time mainly due to age, temperature changes and of course the huge amount of pressure it is under from all of the tension from the strings. This pin block was shot so it had to come out. However, I didn't really know how to do it. I searched and searched the internet for advice and couldn't find anything. I looked in one of the four books I've got on piano restoration and they all said in that particular chapter "first, remove the pin block. After that you need to make another one" with no hint on how to remove it!!! So, I had all of the screws removed by Steve as I mentioned in an earlier post. After that I couldn't really make any headway. I tried to jemmy it out. It didn't budge. After weeks of procrastinating I eventually bit the bullet today. I went off to Homebase and bought a dead cheap set of chisels. Got them home, got the thickest and heaviest one out of the packet and started thwacking against the glue joints. Almost immediately it started to look promising. After a few seconds of belting it (that's the professional term) I heard a huge crack. Don't worry, it was what I wanted to hear. I looked down and the glue joint has come away! HURRAY! The front rail was moving forward and cracked the veneer but I expected that and was planning on replacing the veneer anyway. Cutting a long story short I got it out! It was a big big job but well worth taking the time to ensure it was done correctly.

I've also completed another task that took a LOT longer that I'd ever think was imagineable. The soundboard needed to have the varnish removed. I'd say it took me best part of 20 hours to do it! It's such a slow process. However, the soundboard looks fantastic now. Have a look at the picture to see for yourself.

Once all the finish was removed from the soundboard I then started to remove the bridge pins. I totted up that there's 480 of them on this piano. Each one of them is very tightly wedged into the bridge so that the string can go between them and thus increase pressure. Trying to remove them is a job in itself as they're at an offset angle. They don't just go straight in you know. One one side they point a little towards you and on the other side they point a little away from you. Trying to get a decent purchase while pulling on them is very hard and you're more than aware that you could damage the bridge or the soundboard. I'll be replacing all of the pins with new ones after I've given the top of the bridge a little tittivation to smarten it up.

Some terrible news coming up... Well, it's not actually, I think it's pretty funny.

Since we put our house on the market in June last year, my other grand piano has been in storage courtesy of my friends at Omega Music which is on the trading estate just around the corner from us. Of course, we all thought that the house would be on the market for 10 minutes and the piano could go to wherever we moved to. As soon as the for sale board went up the property market collapsed. So, as a consequence, my other piano has languished courtesy of the local piano dealer, in a storage depot for 10 months. Well, they rang me the other day. "Hi Stuart, we're giving up the storage facility. Where shall we bring your piano back to?" The phrase "BUGGER!" came to my lips. So, after a lot of argy-bargy I've made room in the garage for the other piano to come back on Wednesday. You'd think our garage is a tardis wouldn't you? I'll have 15ft worth of grand pianos in there! I'll leave the current piano on its legs and the other one will stay on its side as I'll not be working on that one anyway. You may ask why we took it out of the house to start with? Well, our living room is only 12' square and a 6' grand piano in it did rather dominate so we thought it'd be wiser to remove it to make the place seem a little roomier. I've got to say that it's lovely without the piano in here as space is something we're not really used to. Martin did have a habit of saying "Give me a tune" for a few weeks after the piano had been taken away as he knew how much I was missing it. Of course, he got a slap.

At this point I'd like to report some bullying. It's not something I'd like to put into the public domain but what the hell. I've got a friend called Ellen S. She's a retired teacher from Norway and she's been picking on me. Tell 'er, mam! Actually I'm thrilled that someone other than me looks at this thing. You do wonder sometimes don't you?

Hammer Time!

I'm trying hard not to whitter on too much for too long on this posting... Oh, who am I kidding?

So, this edition is about the long-awaited hammers and shanks that came from America. I initially wasn't going to replace the old ones but after lots of deliberating about the restoration process I thought it'd not be a proper job if I didn't replace them. I had a bit of a shock when investigating prices of them. It's very difficult to get them for less than around £850 in the UK however, the ones I got were half that in US dollars!!! The hammers took just under a fortnight to arrive which, considering the fact they took 5 days to get from customs in UK to our front door wasn't bad going. Why they took so long at this end is anyone's guess! Anyway, that aside there was £72 in import tax and the like which I was expecting.

I opened the parcel at work as I had to collect them from the depot. I was due to be teaching a class of students music from Brigadoon and My Fair Lady that morning so got there a little earlier to play with the new toys. The students were very taken with my new purchase. Well, either that or they were just humouring their slightly strange lecturer. It was almost certainly the latter.

I read the instructions. Although the hammers were pre-bored of course they needed to be prepared to fit the shank snugly. I needed to buy a small reamer that would fit inside the hole to enlarge them to the correct size. I didn't have one of those so bought a few. They were dead cheap so I didn't worry about that.

After a lit of trial and error in getting the technique sorted out to successfully, accurately and quickly ream the hammers I was moving on apace. It took probably two days or so to do the job but it was worth it. The job comprised of reaming the hammers, checking for fitting of shanks. Lining up the placing of the hammer head on the shank by screwing to the hammer rail, having two old hammers placed on there at either end of the bridge sections and visualising a line from one end to the other to ensure the hammers were at the right point. This wasn't so easy as it may sound as glueing, lining up and everything else just takes lots of time as well as bucketloads of patience. Once all the glue had set there was a little bit of shank sticking out of the top of the hammer. This needed to be sawn off as it would otherwise catch on the backcheck. Out came the little trusty hacksaw to aid me. Sawing these was a gratifying task that was helped/hindered by Loopy - the neighbour's cat who's really called Lucy who seemed to I couldn't possibly manage without her arse in my face. Obviously, she felt the need to oblige!

I'm now at the stage where all of the hammers are fitted to the action and am roughly regulating them so that they're all level and the same distance apart. I know it's far too early to be doing this as the piano hasn't even got a frame in it. However, as the action is going to be knocking about in the house for however long a piece of string is I wanted it to look uniform. It'd do my head in if every time I looked at it all the hammers were out of alignment. Plus, I'm gaining valuable experience in piano regulation/repair technique by doing it too.

I've not been out to the garage to do much more work on the piano itself lately. I've been very busy at work and just glad to get home after the end of a day. I've been assessing lots of shows this last couple of weeks and have played piano in a few of them. Needless to say, that means that during lots of my evenings I have been otherwise engaged. I'm planning on going out at the weekend to do a bit.

Despite the above paragraph, I've still got on a little further on the main body of the piano. I've stripped the finish off most of the soundboard since last time I stuck a piccy up. As the soundboard is spruce and has been varnished since 1914, stripping that off has revealed a beautiful and pale new-looking soundboard. I plan on coating it with a clear varnish and then a few coats of laquer (although (I'll have to research that's the correct procedure first). I think it'll look like brand new. Some good news though is that after a very close scrutiny, it seems that what I thought were very slight cracks are actually just glue-joints from when the soundboard was first assembled. They're tight and solid so, at the moment of speaking at least, the soundboard is in amazingly good condition and will not need any restoration on it apart from making it look nicer with the new varnish. That's only a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

I'll stick one or two pictures on later today. Until then, tra-aa!

Big jobs!

Well, dear reader it has been a week or two since last time I put something on here and I thought I'd best help you catch up on what's been happening.

You think that as I've not written anything that I've not been doing anything? Well, you'll be wrong on that front. I think the last thing I was telling you about was removing the strings which was a big job. I got that finished and was coming to the hardest part... Removal of the frame. Not an easy task.

I had a chat with my mate Steve who's great. He's a carpenter/plumber/builder/sailor/golfer/singer and boozer all to a greater or lesser degree (but I'm not prepared to way which he's good or bad at.) Steve had his handyman head on when we chatted. I needed advice on how to safely remove the frame. The frame itself is well over 8 feet long as it goes from end to end just about. As it is made from cast iron and takes in excess of 30,000lbs of pressure it does have to be a bit heavy... If only we really acknowledged HOW heavy!

I rang Steve and told him that I was ready to remove the frame and after lots of head scratching, teeth sucking and generally standing about looking at it for a while, the three of us, Steve, Martin and I came up with a very, VERY Heath Robinson plan. I was up for hiring a winch but I was assured that three of us could manhandle the frame (which weighs in at around half a ton I'd guess). I wasn't so sure. So, Steve got his big butch brace to remove the bolts and the like from the frame. How did we lift it high enough to get enough leverage to lift it? "Ah-ha!" Said Steve, "We'll get a jack out of the car." Actually, it was a pretty good idea. He stood the jack on the keybed (with the wood protected of course) and started cranking. The frame lifted everso slightly. He carried on. I braced the underside of the keybed as I didn't want it to collapse on itself. After a lot of very slow and careful jacking, the frame was clear of the front of the piano... But still seated at the other end. How to get it out of the piano now?

We braced the front with a very thick broom shank. It was laid across from the left to the right of the piano under the frame. That way when the time was right we would be able to use it as a roller. We then tried to lift the other end... It was jammed so after a little wiggling (the frame, not us) it lifted freely. We thrust another broom handle under that end. Before we did this we moved the piano out of the garage to ensure we had more room. The comments from passing neighbours were hysterical... Not many concert grand pianos standing on drives around here. At this point we were ready to start moving the frame. Steve and Martin at the keyboard end, me at the back. Gently, gently. It started rolling forward. The plan was working (after a fashion). The broom handles were really bowing very heavily indeed but they held. When the frame was far enough forward we were able to counterbalance it. Then, VERY SLOWLY, lowered it to the floor where Steve and Martin took the strain until it landed on the concrete in total control. At this point we thought it'd be a good idea to take a photo. That way if we dropped it and it smashed we'd know what it used to look like! You can see how big the frame is with this picture. Both Steve and I are 6ft tall!

We then tried to get it back in the garage by walking it along the boards we had. We then lowered it under the garage door and put it up against the wall ready for my attention when I get to it.

Why did I need the frame out? I wanted to strip the soundboard and check it for cracks. You can't do a proper job of that without removing the frame. When we'd removed the frame I was able to see that my decision to remove the old pinblock was the right one as it was quite badly split in a couple of places that meant it would have NEVER held a tuning no matter how much work I'd have done on the rest of it.

Refinishing the soundboard is a relatively easy process. It just takes forever to do. I've got to scrape the old varnish off the soundboard. I've got a carpenter's scraper which I'm using rather than trying varnish remover as that seems to be the proper way of doing it. It takes forever. I spent the whole afternoon out there the other day and only did a square foot. It'll definitely be worthwhile though as you can see the colour of the wood underneath and once the one or two small cracks in the soundboard have been shimmed it'll look smashing. I'm thinking of having a clear varnish to retain the very pale colour of the wood as I think it'll be lovely.

Stringing along with you!

Sometimes it's possible to set yourself too much of a target for one day's work. Today was one of those days.

I popped across to Omega Music to borrow my mate Jerry's piano tuning gear that he'd got his wife Jo, to take to work (she works there) at about lunchtime and had a good natter to her. The first natter I've had in best part of a fortnight seeing as I've had a fantastically bad chest infection for about three weeks. At last I'm able to talk to someone without coughing all over them and then showing the colour of the inside of my lungs. Anyway, you didn't open this blog to read about that did you?!?

The idea was that I'd lower the string tension on the piano (that's what you're supposed to do) and eventually start to remove the strings. Getting the tension down was relatively easy - take your time and do the treble strings (unison first, then left then right) but you've got to do it evenly throughout the piano keyboard, gradually lowering the stresses on the frame. As Martin said "What happens if you do it wrong; does the piano fold in half?" Enough of his helpful comments methinks! Lol! But do you know what took an absolute age? Removing the tuning pins and getting rid of the treble wire. Of course, I want the bass strings to be remade so will be sending those off to be copied so they were all carefully(ish) removed, threaded onto wire via the eye loop at the bottom end and they'll be packed into a nice big box to the string maker who'll do a good quality replacement for them. It really does take ages. I counted somewhere in the region of 243 individual pins (give or take one or two) all of which I unscrewed by hand courtesy of Jerry's tuning levers. It took pretty much a full day's work. I started at about 1pm and came in again at 8pm. Yeah, you know me by now, I do tend to faff a bit and get a little sidetracked by things like the neighbour's cat, Lucy, coming and saying hello. She spent about half an hour sitting on my shoulder while I was working. I always wanted a parrot but I'd had an African Grey in mind not a tortoiseshell! Then before all of the unwinding I needed a micrometer to measure the gauge of the strings I was removing so that I ordered the correct gauge pinao wire to re-string. I collared another neighbour, Jim, and asked if I could borrow his. It just happened to be out on the kitchen worktop when I asked so did my calculations and gave him it back within about 30 minutes.

The day wore on and the arms, shoulders and back were killing me with the constant unwinding motion. I wanted to stop but knew if I did that I'd still have it to do later so ploughed on. Eventually it was finished. What else to do but tidy up! The picture to the left is the piano with all of the strings removed and the side with the finish removed which I did last night. Funnily enough, the sanding part took very little time indeed but I've got to admit that despite it being done by hand I didn't do a very good job as yet as I've got two more sandings to do on that side alone. The grade should get finer after each sanding but at least you get the idea of how it is starting to look.

Frustration!

The picture is the result of me being a bit bored, a bit creative and deciding after all to bite the bullet and just order the new hammers, shanks and flanges. The new ones are coming from good old US of A and will be here when they get here. In the meantime I didn't know what to do with thie old ones. Shall I keep them as spares for any potential repairs I may do on other pianos in the future or shall I stick 'em on Ebay? I'll keep them for a few years like I do with most stuff, never use them and probably just end up flinging them in a good old-fashioned clearout! Until then though, don't they look pretty?

Well, dear reader - the day was bound to come eventually and today was it. I'd got to the exciting bit of the job and was totally knackered by unseen forces! (not quite but it feels like that sometimes doesn't it?)

I'd checked the beauty of the newly laquered black keys which are not only black but have a moderately shiny surfact to them too - classy that you know! The time was right - the bit I've been looking forward to. Checking the downbearing on the crown (sounds complex but it ain't. The strings have pressure to make the crown lift and causing it to resonate. Too much and it's wrong, too little and it's wrong. It was ok. I then wanted to remove the strings to send the bass strings off to be remade. Right, where's the tuning lever? Hmm, not where it is supposed to be. I'll look in this bag, nope, that one, no. Hmm, how about in that drawer? Or that cupboard or that room or this room or that shelf or the loft or back again to where I thought it was originally. 4 HOURS I spent looking for the bloody thing. Nowt. I wasn't a happy bunny. I can't think where it is. I've not seen it (I don't think) for several months; not since my other piano was sent off into storage. I wonder if it went off with that? Oh well. I've spoken to my mate, Jerry and he's lending me one so I'll be ok but it was very, very annoying. Can you tell? lol

What did I do in the meantime though? I dismantled the damper action of course - what else would I do? It's actually in ver good condition and doesn't need a lot doing to it apart from a good clean out. However, I've decided to re-bush the damper rail as a matter of course as it'll only need doing some other time in the future. I've pushed out all of the old bushings that were really faded and will be inserting the new ones tomorrow. You should have seen the dust!

I was under the piano doing something or other this morning and got up and carried on what I was working on. About an hour later (after talking to one of the neighbours for half an hour or so) I went in the house and Martin said "What's that all over your face?" I looked in the mirror and my face was black. I looked like an Al Jolson impersonator! The neighbour didn't even bat an eyelid. How's that for tact?

As the evening was wearing on I wanted to do something productive rather than feel sorry for myself over this lever so I got the Nitromorse (varnish remover) out. I attacked the long bent side of the piano with it and within half an our or so I'd got the lot off and down to the bare wood. It looks really nice already. I sanded the part down that I'd stripped and will probably continue the stripping tomorrow for an hour or two.

This whole project is coming on extremely quickly. I feel that I've got to slow it down significantly as if I'm not careful I'll have a fully restored piano in the garage that in effect will be almost open to the elements which is crazily bad for it. "Hold your horses, sunshine" as my granda used to say!

I should be able to replace the black keys in the action tomorrow which will mean that can be put away out of sight until the hammers, shanks and flanges arrive instead of it sitting in the middle of the living room floor like it has done for the last week. Martin is very patient. Well, the thing is, we were moving it in and out for every day so that it was tidy when I'd finished working on it but as it got more complete it got heavier, and heavier and harder to man handle around the house so we sort of tacitly decided to leave it there where it was until most of the work was done. We've probably got company staying on Thursday night so it had better be out of the way for Toby coming - she'll only laugh otherwise.

Key attack!!!

As you may have guessed by the title I've got going on the proper restoration of the keys now. As those of you in the know, most concert grand pianos have 88 keys (7 1/4 octaves). Some smaller pianos have 85 (7 octaves) some even smaller uprights have 76! And of course, not forgetting the stupendous Bosendorfer Imperial with the 97 keys - a full 8 octaves. The extra keys on that one are at the bass end and are all painted black so that the pianist knows where the normal piano stops. It's very useful if you're trying to attract the attention of a passing ocean liner having those notes as it sounds just the same as the horn.

Anyway, the keys weren't in such a bad state to be honest. The rebushing went well and all of the damper bushing felts at the back of the keys were added (that stops a "clunk" every time you press the damper pedal). So I looked at the black keys and thought that they looked relatively tired. Best part of a century's worth of grease from playing and sitting in dusty environments and the like. I tried to scrape the worst of the grease off but it didn't work very well. I ended up opting for sandpaper. That was FAR better but of course, once again was painfully slow going.

I got down to the original ebony colour and to my dismay saw that it was much browner than I wanted... Back to my piano restoration bible. Hmm, I've got to get black spray-on laquer have I? Right, straight to the local hardware store. Didn't have what I wanted. Went into the city and to the major retailers there like B&Q, Homebase, Wickes et al and they weren't able to help either. Bugger! So, ended up back in the local hardware store and did a bit of busking with the idea. I bought a can of matt black spray paint and asked if they had any spray-on laquer. No. However, they did have wood laquer. "That'll do!" I said. Got home and sprayed the black paint on. To be honest, I wasn't too hopeful. I left it overnight and went back in the following morning - it looked fantastic!!! I did a second very light coat and left that for several hours to dry. Once dried I applied the laquer with a brush. When I left it last night it looked very good indeed. I'm just about to go out to the garage and have a look to see how nicely it has dried. I believe you've got to add a few coats and sand down after the last coat. Hopefully I'll get the result I'm after. I've got my fingers crossed that I've struck lucky with this as if I have it is more through luck than judgement!