Restoration of a Chickering grand for David Burton
28) 
28a) 
28b) 
28) The ribs are now done and ready to be glued to the skin of the board.
You can see that the shape of the old ribs has been transferred to the new ribs
along with the kerfs at each end. The rounding of the ribs to finish this shape
duplication will be done after the sound board has been glued up.
28a) On this round of restoration projects in the shop, I am restoring six pianos at
the same time. It is easier for me to maintain the highest quality and at the same
time produce the fastest possible production by lacquering the parts of these pianos in
groups based upon the type of part as opposed to lacquering groups of boards based upon
which piano they came out of. In this "installment" I'm spraying the legs
and pedals. After the lacquer had been layered to a total thickness of .005"
and allowed to dry enough to sand, it was sanded until all the spraying marks and grain
was sanded completely away. Then the boards were cleaned well and another mil of
lacquer was added to flow out the 220 grit sanding marks. The condition of the
surface of these parts after this final top coat of lacquer was such that they will rub
out very quickly since the surfaces are nearly flawless.
28b) The same again but on this "round" I am spraying music desks, key
slips and a few other similarly shaped boards.
29) 
30) 
29) Polishing the key pins and cleaning and checking the felt to make
sure it can either be reused with impunity. Any problems at this stage always
results in new felt. In this case some felt did have to be replaced but not all.
30) Rebushing the keys.
31) 
32) 
33) 
31) Reconditioning the shanks and flanges. In this case, since the
wood of the action parts was in mint condition, we restored the originals rather than
replacing them.
32) New sand paper was glued to the flange rail as you see. The work done to
the shanks and flanges included repinning the action centers to create a correct and even
tension throughout the set; bolstering the knuckles; reshaping the knuckle leather to get
a good feel through let off and removing all but the guide hammers and cleaning the old
glue off the shanks in preparation for new hammers.
33) Once the shanks were restored and screwed back onto the rail, the entire set was
traveled to ensure that all the hammers swing in a direct line to the strings and parallel
to each other. This ensure evenness of tone and touch.
34) 
35) 
36) 
34) The new sound board blank has been in the tent drying for a couple
weeks at 10% relative humidity and has shrunk by about 3/32 of an inch. Now it's
time to fit it to the rim of the piano. You can see the stamp (soon to be trimmed
away) containing the Bolduc logo on
this board.
35) First the long, straight side is fitted closely, then the opposite side is
fitted until the board will drop clear into the piano. Then clamps are used to press
the board back into the curve of the rim and the fit reexamined throughout. The fit
is worked with until it is as close as possible all the way around. Any places where
the wood of the board doesn't touch the rim of the piano should be so slim that a little
glue squeeze out will easily fill them.
36) All the ribs have had index holes drilled through them into the rim of the
piano. Then bridge pins are pressed into the holes. Similar index holes were
done earlier before the original board was removed. All index holes are filled with
bridge pins and the new board pressed down onto them to create prick marks in the wood.
The marks are used to align the new board with the original so that all holes that
need to be transferred to the new board can be done in exactly the right places. The
prick marks for the new ribs are used only when gluing the board together in the press.
For this operation, the first index marks used before the original board was
removed are being made use of.
37) 
38) 
39) 
37) The holes have all been transferred and the edges of the board marked
with saw kerfs carefully laid in place to guide me in diaphramizing the board.
38) The board is now diaphramized and all duplication operations completed.
Since it has been out in the shop much of the day, it must go back in and cook for a day
or two before it can be put into the press.
39) Gluing the ribs to the sound board in the belly press. Once the clamps are
in place, the press is draped with blankets and heat is up underneath to keep the board
dry. We don't want the moisture level in the board to rise again until the finished
assembly is safely glued into the piano.
40) 
41) 
42) 
40) Reconditioning the treble bridge. There were some surface
cracks in this bridge but they were all removed during this process. The bridge
should work just as well as it did when new. I would like to have seen a new
vertical laminated bridge core and new bridge caps on this to make it absolutely perfect.
However, it didn't make good financial sense for the customer to dump several
thousand additional dollars into this piano because the improvement would only be minor
and would not increase the selling price of the piano sufficiently to justify that work.
This piano has solid bridge cores. Steinway pianos use vertically laminated
bridge cores made up of numerous layers of maple glued together to form the curve of the
bridge. On the next two pianos this customer is having rebuilt, we will probably go
with new bridges throughout because those pianos are Knabes and will return the extra work
to us in the form of cash, which is the primary consideration for the work done for this
customer.
41) Doing the preliminary shaping of the rib profiles with a plane and sander.
After all the clamping is done, all marks left by the clamp's cushions will be
sanded and the entire board gone over carefully to make sure it's beautiful and smooth all
over.
42) Clamping the treble bridge into place.
43) 
44) 
45) 
43) Replacing the apron on the bass bridge. The bridge itself was
in fine shape but the apron had fallen apart and warped. A new one was duplicated
and the original bridge is soaking to remove all old glue and traces of wood from the old
apron.
44) Clamping the new apron to the bass bridge. You can see the glue squeeze
out in this photo. I like to see a little squeeze out because it ensure that I have
enough glue in the joint.
45) Clamping the bass bridge to the sound board. Index pins holes which were
transferred from the old board and bridge apron are used to position the bridge.
Extra wood is used as a shim to make sure the clamping pressure remains square to the
apron itself.
46) 
47) 
48) 
46) A preliminary fit of the new board into the piano. The glue
joint underneath was marked at this point so that masking tape could be put on the
underside of the board. This tape kept me from getting lacquer onto the area which
would glue to the piano.
47) Lacquering the board.
48) Refinishing the under side of the piano. Now is the time for this while
the board is out of the way.
49) 
50) 
51) 
49) The under side of the finished board showing how the wood was kept
free of lacquer where it will glue to the case.
50) The top side of the finished board.
51) Gluing the board into place.
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