Yes, I'm still here!

I hope you didn't think you'd been forsook... Or is it forsaken? Depends which century you're in I suppose. I do know that Purcell used the word forsook in Dido and Aeneas but I suppose that could be old English now. ANYWAY you've not been either forsaken or forsook. I bet you're glad that's out of the way!

So, although I've been pretty quiet over the summer when it has come to the Blogging lark, there have been one or two things going on in the meantime.

As I stated in one or two earlier posts, my mate, Steve has been very helpful in the process. As a matter of fact, helpful is nowhere near strong enough a word to describe what he's done.

As Steve is a very, very good carpenter he has been working on building the wrestplank or pin block or whatever you want to call it. Basically, if you've not read the earlier posts of the blog, it's the bit of wooden plank that the tuning pins screw into. The plank has to be of a very strong and stable wood. After lots of research, I decided not on Delignit as most places seem to recommend but on beech instead. Although Delignit is, no doubt very good there were a few problems with it. Mostly getting the bloody stuff. It's easier getting hold or rocking horse turds than getting hold of that stuff. Anyway, after deciding on the beech, Steve went off to Penrith to his supplier and started making the laminates that make up the board. The board needs to be 1.5" thick. As the piano was originally built in imperial measurements, Steve has also decided to work in that way too. So, here's how Steve did it...

What you see is a jig that the individual laminates sit on. The jig ensures that the plank is ABSOLUTELY flat. That's very important. We don't want a bowed bit of wood that's meant to be straight do we?

Steve used a contact adhesive which is very, very strong indeed. In fact, it went off so quickly that he struggled to get the laminates together quickly enough. Nevertheless he managed so far and also so far it is very successful. Obviously, he's not finished yet as the holes need to be drilled as well as it being fitted (exactly) to the frame.

After doing my little bit of restoration work on the bridge, I wasn't happy with it so removed what I'd done. I'm now going to redo that which, despite being very slow-going, it actually very easy.

Today I went into the garage to see what small job I could undertake. I didn't fancy busting a gut so decided to take one of the legs off; the back one if you're interested, and did the usual nitromorse. I took a couple of photographs of the before and after stripping so you can see the huge improvement. I was very pleased with the results and I'm sure you can understand why.

From the photos you'll see that there was a very tired, old brass castor. You should have seen how difficult it was to get that off. Eventually I resorted to a hammer and the flat edge of a screwdriver. not a good idea but it did work without leaving a mark, which amazed me. Once again, the rest of the day was set aside to do what only I, a former trainee clockmaker can do so well. The brasso came out and was used for the next two hours or so. I've just got to laquer the brass which is easy to do and that's that one done. So, two down, one to go!

A few weeks ago I tried to remove some of the paint on the frame of the piano. It wasn't really very successful. I'm wondering if I should hire a sandblaster or something. Yes, it'll be pretty heavy-duty but in the longrun will be far more effective at getting the required removal of paint as well as being very quick indeed. I'll have to research again I think. If it's more than £50 or so I'll be going back to the drawing board on that idea. maybe I'll just sit with my bucket and spade and flick individual grains at it between my finger and thumb until it's all done. I'm sure it won't take too long to do it that way.

Oh, and I hope you like my slippers in the last piccy!!!