at last

Well, today I thought I'd take the Christmas decorations down. Once I'd done that I had to get the ladders out of the loft. I went into the garage to get the ladders. While I was there I just checked the crown in the soundboard of the piano. I have been a little concerned about it but there was no need to fear to be honest. It seems to have stayed perfectly intact. More through luck than judgement.

I've been trying and trying to come up with a way of getting the old paint off the frame - which I spoke of in my last post I believe. I've got gallons of Nitromors left over from when I was stripping the case of the piano so I thought I'd have a go with that. Like the right divot that I am I put it on, did a job or two while it 'went off' and came back. I got my wire brush and gave it a bit of a going over. To my total surprise the paint came off! Well, who knew that paintstripper would remove paint?!?! All this time I've been hanging on not doing it because of the small patch I tried a year ago not working. It turns out that I'd just not left it for long enough.

Of course, the perfect timing is that the day after tomorrow I have my second carpal tunnel operation and won't be able to even consider using my hand for anything other than the royal wave for about a fortnight. Oh well, it'll give me something to start doing before Easter won't it?

Still 'ere!

Hello again. No, I'd not died and given up the ghost. I've had lots of other things going on this year that have sadly meant that the piano has had to take a back seat. However, it's going to be getting more attention very soon.

I was hoping to be able to keep the keytops for both the black and the white keys but after lots of deliberating I decided that it wasn't going to give me the finish I was aspiring for so I took the white ones off. They came off very easily and in one piece too. I did the usual eBay thing and came up with a full set of brand new off-white keytops with change out of £30 including delivery. Needless to say I was pleased!

The black keys are another issue...

I did spray them as it shows in a much earlier post but after a few months it became clear that it wasn't going to be acceptable. I don't mind that, I'm glad it turned out to not be right before I'd put the piano back together again!!!

We had a burst water pipe in the garage the other day which is where this piano and my smaller 6ft Kawai grand are both being stored at present. We were terrified to open the garage door. The temperature had been down to minus 17 and was consistently around there for about two weeks. Loads of pipes in the area were freezing up. Now, I wasn't worried about the pianos in the garage as they're extremely well insulated specifically because of where they are but I'd not born a burst pipe in mind. When the postman knocked on the door saying "I don't want to be the bearer of bad news but there's water pouring out of your garage" we both thought that the pianos had had it. We were SO LUCKY you'd not believe it. Yes, the pipe had burst. Yes it was right beside the piano but it had burst in the complete opposide direction to where either of the pianos were and was just running almost directly under the garage door. Obviously, it was spraying off the wall a bit but the pianos were both as dry as a bone. It was then that I thought that I've got to get on with this project.

2011 is the year this piano gets finished... I hope!

ongoing!

I'm trying to make the blog a lot more interesting to the unfortunate souls who just may pass by so have unsuccessfully(ish) begun to add images. This one went up on the 5th attempt after several accidental deletes! Hmm, I still like the old technology, you know, cave paintings!

These blog entries are pretty hit-and-miss aren't they? Sometimes there's loads of them within a week and then there's nowt for ages. I think it's just me being a bit flaky. I forget all about it and then Martin says "are you still doing your blog?" I go, "Oh, yeah. Did it yesterday as it happens." and then I rush to another room to put something up! lol

So, this grand piano lark. It's certainly moving on you know. I must admit that I was a little concerned that I'd buy it with all good intentions of a full restoration of it and then lose interest. I only feared that because that's what I usually do! lol. However, so far, that hasn't happened as yet. So, what have I done with it?

* I've removed all of the brassware to either restore or replace
* I've taught myself (with the help of Youtube and lots of research) how to French Polish
* I've discovered that I'm not the greatest French Polisher in the world but took my time and improved immeasurably.
* I've stripped most of the polish off the piano and started to evaluate the best course of action to either restore parts of the veneer or to remove the lot and re-veneer the whole thing. I think I'll do the former but with BIG replacement areas.
* I've stripped the entire action (as I think I mentioned in an earlier post). Well, that's now done and I'm just awaiting one or two parts to arrive in the post for that to be finished.
* Investigated the cost of replacing the hammers. I also need one or two new flanges and shanks. I can't decide to either restore the hammers or replace them. I think the best option for the musical instrument is to replace but for my pocket it is definitely to restore. I think I will replace but will have to save up for a month or two to do it.
* I came to the conclusion that on a 95 year old piano (no matter how nice it is) it is foolhardy to not replace the pinblock. I've spent part of today looking for the correct stuff. I want "Delignit" but the supplier in the UK seems to not actually exist so I'll have to keep mooching.
* I reglued and cleaned all of the ivory on the keys, re-bushed them and of course gave a good going over to remove dust off the main body of the key... 88 times. The white notes are back in the action now after also doing similar work on the wippens undertaking any minor repairs where necessary before stripping and respraying the action brackets and fixing it all back together again. What a busy boy!

Next on the list is to continue the stripping and gradual French Polishing of the case as time and inclination allows... Ooh, you don't half get an achy shoulder! I'm going to have to polish up all the brassware and laquer it as well as locating a brass piano hinge (shouldn't be too difficult). I've been looking for string manufacturers and have found one in the UK that'll be the one I go for. The tone sounds ok on the piano (it sounds like an ocean liner coming into port when you hit the bottom notes!!!) but new strings after such a huge restoration on it will be the finishing touches. I've also got to remove and restore the frame and work on tidying up the soundboard. There's a couple of hairline cracks in teh soundboard which, after lots of research, I've discovered aren't actually a death knell for a piano as it can relatively simply (although as with everything else in piano restoration -painstakingly) be dealt with by shimming the gap. Simple really. These cracks are so small I'm not even convinced they are cracks. After all that's done I've got to replace the lot, restring, re-align for the downbearing of the strings and regulation, voicing, several tunings and as they say, Bob's your uncle! I'd say I'm maybe a third of the way through the job so far and I'm absolutley loving it. It's such a cathartic thing to do. Going out to the garage and listening to music on my MP3 player while pottering about. I've never had a "pottering about" project before and I absolutely love it!

First job on the list now? Ebay for veneer! Wish me luck!!!

xxx