Restoration of a Clavia-Concerto for Steven Baskin
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1) The piano as it was before work began.
2) Now all the removable boards have been taken off the piano so that they can be
refinished. the piano is now tipped on its back so that it can be destrung.
3) The strings have been removed and notes have been taken concerning wire gauges.
The original scale for the wire gauges will probably not be used but it is good to
have as a reference.
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4) The strings and tuning pins have been removed and the plate is also out.
5) The back side of the plate. This piano has many good design features.
Although it was probably not considered the top of the line piano, it has very good
bones which will make it possible for me to produce an excellent final product. One
feature that is very good is the fact that the plate has tuning pin bushings driven into
it. These wooden bushings help to make the plate, pin block, tuning pin assembly
more solid as a single unit. The old bushings will be replaced with new ones but it
is very good to see that the maker cared enough to take the time to install these.
6) Indexing the sound board in preparation for removing it. The square helps
me align the drill so that I can create perfectly square and true holes. This
enables me to make the new sound board very accurately.
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7) The old sound board has now been removed.
8) I'm very impressed with the way this sound board was made. Although the way
it was glued into the piano was not as good, the general construction of the board is such
that the replacement should sound beautiful. In particular, I like the fact that the
ribs are wider than they are tall. By doing this, the maker retained the strength in
the ribs while creating greater flexibility. This is similar to something I would
expect to find in a Mason and Hamlin piano.
9) Now that the sound board is out, I can index the locations of the old bridges for
reference when making the new ones.
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10) Removing the old bridges. I only need these bridges as a pattern since new
ones are scheduled to be built for this piano. It is good that new bridges were
planned. As it turns out, the general construction method of these bridges was very
poor. They had no caps on them at all. They are simply solid chunks of maple
which have been poorly joined together. The new bridges will be vertically laminated
and far superior to the originals.
11) Soaking the old glue and bits of sound board that need to be removed from the
shelf which the sound board is glued to. This shelf is called the rastin.
12) All the old glue and wood residue have been removed. Indications are, at
this point, that the original sound board was not tightly fitted into the notches in the
rastin. If this is confirmed, I will make changes in the shape of the rastin and in
the way the new ribs are made to ensure a very close fitting joint throughout the rastin
area. You will also note, in this photo, that the top board which covered the pin
block from above has been chiseled free from the piano. This will make it easier for
me to access the pin block with the router when the time comes to remove the old pin block
wood.
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13) Part of the lower part of the rastin was unglued from the piano. This
problem had carried itself into the sound board by splitting the board apart in this area.
The pieces of wood were spread apart and sanded carefully to remove as much old
glue and contaminants as possible. Then new hide glue was applied to the joint and
then it was clamped. Hide glue was used because that is the glue that was used
originally. Any glue residue remaining in the joint from before will meld with the
new glue, forming a strong joint once again.
14) The finish has now been stripped off the piano. Because the piano had seen
a great deal of wear over the years and then this worn finish was painted white, there is
a lot of difficulty with getting the paint removed from the dents and scratches.
Those areas hold the paint very tenaciously. In addition, the original color of this
piano was so dark as to be almost black. It may be an option to white wood sand this
piano to remove the stain along with all the prior damage so we can start again and finish
with a lighter final color. That decision will be left in the hands of the owner.
15) Sadly, the original player mechanism of this piano was removed and thrown out
years ago. We will be restoring it to its glory as a player piano using a QRS
Pianomation system. With this new system, the hinged key slip and the thin backing
key slip will not be needed. In fact, when they removed the old mechanism, they
nailed the hinged key slip into place, damaging it in the process. I do have a solid
mahogany key slip which could be installed in place of the original key slips. This
will enable us to make the fall board lockable. The hinged key slips don't lock.
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16) This shows a set of special jigs which were custom made
for this piano. The jigs were used to cut recesses into the original pin block of
the piano in order to remove all the wood surrounding the area were the tuning pins go.
At the same time, the other half of the jigs are used to cut new Delignit pin block
material inserts that will fit the recesses perfectly.
17) Transferring the screw and tuning pin locations onto the new pin block
inserts.
18) Drilling out the inserts to receive the new tuning pins and plate screws.
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19) Getting the action ready to be torn down.
20) The action has had all its old parts removed except for the end hammer
assemblies which will be used to align the new hammers. There are a few bits of the
old action which will be cleaned, restored and reused rather than being replaced because
our access to replacements for those specific parts is not so good. The originals,
once restored, will be better than replacements.
21) All the old key bushings have been soaked out. Then the keys are allowed
to dry over night and then new bushings are installed. The white pieces are cauls
which are precision cut to make sure that the rebushed keys will fit the key pins
perfectly.
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22) The old finish has been removed from the keybed.
All the old felt will need to be removed, the key pins polished and new felt installed
before the keys are put back onto this.
23) The new pin block inserts have now been epoxied into place. The finished
assembly will be just as strong as when it was new. However, the use of these
inserts enables me to create a system which grips the tuning pins much better than the
original design.
24) This shows some of the loose boards after they were stripped, white wood sanded
(which means sanding until all the old stain is gone and you're left with plain white
wood) and dyed (not stained but dyed.) The original plan and price did not include
the labor intensive job of white wood sanding. However, after we got the piano
stripped of the white paint and old varnish, we found that the piano had originally been
stained such a dark brown that it was nearly black. This customer really wanted the
piano to be a more medium red color. So, to satisfy the customer better, I went to
the significant extra labor of white wood sanding the piano even though I received no
remuneration for the additional days of work.
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25) Now the boards have all been sealed, the open pores
filled with paste wood filler and then the boards sealed once more. This causes the
wood to look darker and more brown in the photo than it did when it was first stained.
Mahogany is like this. It has color of its own and when you seal it, it goes
darker unless you actually bleach it. However, the fact that I used an aniline dye
means that the color of the wood will dance and sparkle with changes in the light.
Under sunlight or other forms of direct light, the color will lighten way up to be a
medium red color. In lower lighting, the wood will take on a warmer and darker
tone. The grain will even shift in color as you change the angle that your looking
at it. It makes the wood feel almost alive.
26) During the sanding of the piano, it became apparent that the veneer on the feet
was totally shot. It was pointless to attempt to touch up and repair the damage
piecemeal. Instead, I chiseled the old veneer off completely and applied new
mahogany.
27) In this photo, I'm gluing the sides with the new mahogany. The particle
board clamping cauls are nice because of their design. They are nice and flat and
hard so they help the veneer to take on a nice flat surface. Yet, the cauls are
unstable enough that, if any glue catches a caul, the area of contact will tear easily
away from the caul, leaving a little bit of the caul on the piano. These particles
of wood dust are simply scraped or sanded away and the veneer is ready for sanding and
staining.
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28) Now, I'm gluing on the tops and fronts. After the
first two sides of each foot were dry, I removed the clamps and cauls and carefully
trimmed the veneer flush at the edges. The next two faces were glued on in such an
order that, when finished, you will not be able to see the veneer's edges on any of the
sides without getting down on the floor to examine it. The front veneer caps off the
sides and the top veneer caps off all the others.
29) The new veneer is cleaned up, sanded and ready to be stained to match the piano.
During the process of refinishing I spend a great many days doing tasks which are
all the same and don't really warrant photographing. It is during this part of the job
that the work seems to be moving the slowest as you watch it over the internet. Rest
assured, the work is progressing at a good speed but it is a lot of the same tasks which
just don't need to be listed here. I can show the piano being rubbed out, for instance,
with one photo. However, the job may take a week to two weeks or more to complete...
30) Now it is time to make the new sound board. The new ribs
have been shaped so that they fit the notches in the rastin (the ledge on which the sound
board is glued) and match the widths of the original ribs as taken from the old sound
board. Any places where the original work done by the factory left the rastin
fitting the ribs improperly, repairs are made to ensure a tight fit.
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