Restoration of a player piano that
is also an orchestrian for the Dahl family of McKinney Texas
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67) 
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67) The pin block is now finished. The inserts have been glued into place and
all the holes where the plate screws go into the piano have been plugged with new Delignit
pin block material plugs. The original screw holes were stripping out. You can
also see in this picture that the upper treble bridge cap is not on the bridge. The
outer layer of wood on the bridge, known as the cap, fell off the bridge after the bridge
pins were removed. To ensure the best possible tone in the treble and a long lasting
quality, it was decided that this cap should be remade rather than just gluing the old one
back on. This job will be done at no additional cost to the customer. The
reason for doing it is strictly because I don't want a piano leaving my shop with a bridge
cap that is in that bad a condition. Some of the cracks in this cap go quite deep
and would be difficult to repair. Therefore, it will be replaced.
68) After the sound board was dried sufficiently to reveal all cracking that was
likely to occur, a total of 25 feet worth of cracks were discovered. Here, you can
see the die grinder with the special router bit and guide that is used to clean old wood
out from around all cracks. The new spruce shims that will be driven into these new
voids are made to match the shape and size of the cutter exactly.
69) This picture was taken after all but one of the cracks had been prepared for
shims. The final crack could not be done at this time because both panels of spruce
that it was adjacent to were totally loose from the sound board. It was, therefore,
necessary to do all of the regluing before this final crack could be cut open for
shimming. In fact, all of the cracks that were below the long bridge also showed
very bad glue failure between the skin of the board and the ribs. However, the rest
of the glue joints were sufficient to hold the skin safely in place while it was routed
for shims. All except this last one. When it was time to plan the screw
locations for regluing the skin to the ribs, the skin of the board was pressed firmly from
behind so that any glue joints that were holding but weak would let go so they could be
repaired.
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70) This picture shows that the skin of the sound board has been reglued.
Before any regluing was done, wedges were driven between the sound board and the back
support posts. These wedges force the sound board into the crowned shape that it was
originally designed with. By installing these wedges, it is possible for the new
shims and glue joints to take on this crowned shape permanently, thus giving the board
back a degree of its original strength and vibrancy. The clamping pressure is
exerted using screws with washers under them to keep them from digging into the sound
board. Even the areas that were not coming unglued from the ribs were reinforced
with dowel inserts. To the left of the long bridge in this picture, you can see that
holes have been drilled into each intersection of a rib and a crack. Dowels will be
inserted here to discourage the currently solid glue joints from coming apart in the
future. If it had been in the budget to do so, it would have been immensely
preferable to replace this sound board. Never before have I reglued a board that had
gone this bad. However, it would have required an additional $3500 to replace this
sound board.
71) After the glue had dried, the screws were removed and all the screw holes were
drilled again to make them the exact size necessary to hold dowels tightly. These
dowels will reinforce the joint and discourage it from failing again in the future.
In this picture, you can see that the dowels that go above and to the left of the long
bridge have already been installed. The dowels that will be going below and to the
right of the long bridge have all been dry fitted and sized for length, then they were
placed partially in their corresponding holes. Next, each dowel was picked up,
coated with hide glue and driven into place. Because of the way this board had to be
restored and because of the hard life it has lived, it is impossible to make the back side
of the board look good but the front side will be well sanded and steps taken to make it
look as close to new as possible. There were so many places that had to have dowels
that the thinner areas of the ribs had to be drilled clear through so that the dowel
inserts would have the maximum amount of rib to grab ahold of. This is one reason
why the back of the board will not be able to be made to look as good as one could hope.
72) All the 25 feet of new spruce shims have been fitted and driven into place.
In some areas, it was necessary to place the shims under clamping pressure to keep
them tightly in place until the glue could set up. Because the shims are straight
and the sound board has been wedged into a crowned shape, the longer shims don't always
stay tight in the joints just by the driving pressure that was exerted while installing
them. If a shim tends to pop up a bit, a clamp is put on it until the glue can set.
73) 
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73) The sound board shims are being trimmed flush with the surface of the sound
board.
74) A view of the new sound board shims seen from the back of the piano.
75) The sound board has been scraped clean of its old finish.
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78) 
76) Now we're ready to make the new bridge caps. This is a picture of
the bass bridge which was removed from the sound board to make room to for shimming
work. You can see from this photo that the last "rebuilder" had this cap
fall of on him/her. This person glued the cap back on using screws to clamp it
down. The screws were not sufficient for clamping since, as you can see, they did
not allow the edges to become secure. In addition, the cap was misaligned during the
regluing process. You can see this misalignment in the photo.
77) This picture shows the one section of the bridge caps that is being reused.
It is being renotched. However, because the wood was a bit soft, it didn't
respond well to the chisel. Therefore, the die grinder was used to restore the
points on the bridges where the strings meet the bridge. This must be done so that
the strings will have the best possible tone. If the notches on the bridges are not
very clean and in perfect alignment with the bridge pins, the strings will be false.
That means that one string will sound like two strings that are out of tune with
each other.
78) Duplicating the treble bridge cap.
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81) 
79) Gluing the treble bridge cap into place.
80) Gluing the new bass bridge cap onto the bass bridge core which has already been
removed from the piano to make way for the shimming operation.
81) Transferring the pinning pattern onto the new bass bridge cap.
82) 
82) Drilling the bass bridge to receive the new bridge pins.
