Why you should rebuild your piano.

Why Should I Rebuild My Piano?

When your car gets old and worn out, you replace it. If your bicycle gets old and worn out you replace it. When your toaster gets old and worn out you replace it. When your husband or wife gets old and worn out you.......well.......they're worth keeping anyway! :-)

But it may not be such a good idea to replace your piano if it's old and worn out. Why?

The best reasons are about to follow. However, the ONE BIG REASON that most of you will be interested in, is that you can have a truly excellent rebuild done to your piano for about the same cost as a new piano of considerably less quality. You will spend anywhere from 10% to 100% (depending on your circumstance) more to acquire a new piano of equal quality to your rebuilt antique.

Here's some more reasons:

First of all, the basic construction of many old pianos is so good that a new piano may very well be less well built. Many manufacturers of new pianos are using inferior sound board materials as well as using pressed saw dust board for their cabinet parts. There is a long list of attributes of a new piano that may not be as good as your old piano.

Second, I have the technology available to me right here to make your piano better than it was even when it was new. Here are a few things that I can do for your piano that could make it better than new:

1) Rescale the piano. This involves recalculating the sizes of wire used in stringing the piano. It also includes a complex process of redesigning the way the bass strings are overwound. With a carefully redesigned scale and strings wound by a premium string winder, the finished scaling will almost always be better than it was when new.

2) Redesign action dynamics and touch weight. Many new pianos will have been run through the touch weight and regulation portion of their manufacture rather quickly. Once roughed in, they'll be shipped. By having your old piano rebuilt, you can ensure that your piano will have premium attention given to every aspect of the action regulation. In fact, whenever possible, I prefer to play the actions on my rebuilds for numerous hours and then regulate them again before sending them out.

3) Replace lower quality designs in the pin block with a full fit pin block like the best manufacturers use. Follow this link to watch me do a very economical but very effective restoration to a grand piano in which a full fit pin block was installed where the original block was not of such high quality.

4) When having your piano rebuilt, you can specify very specifically the exact color and style of finish you want. No need to settle for what you can find on the showroom floor at a music store.

5) It's good for the environment. No mahogany trees or tropical rain forest products need to be cut down in order to restore your piano. If your piano still has ivory keytops then you won't have to kill an elephant to get new ones (which is illegal anyhow.) Even if your original ivories look so horrid you think they can't be saved, I'm willing to bet I can make them look splendid again! And if your ivory is beyond hope, I have access to legal ivory and bone which can be used to replace your originals with ivory coverings of superior quality to the ones installed originally. Of course some new woods must be put into your rebuilt piano but the rare tropical rain forest woods are spared through recycling. In addition, some old pianos have wonderful veneers on them that you just don't see in new pianos.

6) You can install a new sound board that is far superior to what most current makers are doing. I produce new sound boards of significantly higher quality than most new piano makers are using. In fact, the old board in many lesser brand pianos can be replaced with one of my boards making the finished product significantly better than the day it was new. Follow this link to learn about sound board construction. Follow this link to watch a new sound board being made in my shop. That second link continues onto a second page which you will find here.

7) The refinishing materials I use are made of top grade nitrocellulose lacquer. It is hard and durable but easy to repair and easy to replace in the future through refinishing. Many new pianos are being made with polyester finishes. They look striking when they're new but polyester cannot be removed once it is applied to wood. When the finish wears out on a piano that has been treated with polyester, you might just as well burn the piano. There are ways around this. You can aggressively sand the polyester away to get down to the wood again. However, the chances are excellent that you'll ruin the veneer in the process of getting the polyester off.

I could go on at length with more and more reasons why it makes such good sense to rebuild your piano. There is the issue of sentimental attachment to your instrument; of preserving a piece of history; of maintaining a family heirloom. There is the issue of the beauty of cabinetry employed in many older pianos which cannot be purchased today. The bottom line is that the reasons for saving these pieces of history through restoration far outweigh any concerns which would tend to lead us to destroying these pianos. My vote is that we maintain and restore them. What's yours?