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.