Restoration of a Lester Upright for Mark Steele
1) 
2) 
3) 
1) The piano before work began. When we first
scheduled this project, I had priced the work based upon doing a simple, cabinet grade
finish. However, when I saw the piano and how beautiful it was, I offered to throw
in a grain filled, rubbed finish at no extra charge. I simply couldn't stand to do
less than the best for such a pretty piano. Despite its present horrid condition,
this piano has great bones. It is my belief that, if we do a really thorough job on
rebuilding it, this piano will be able to hold its own with any similar style of Steinway.
2) The back of the piano showing how dark the wood has become. This
discoloration speaks of years of exposure to moisture and also, probably, heat.
3) When the lid was removed the condition of the pin block was revealed. The
wood has totally come unglued and the plate was bending forward. This could have
broken the plate but, happily, it didn't. The repairs needed to set this right will
be thrown in at no extra cost. The customer is already considering the idea of doing
more work than was originally intended. I want to help make these additional, very
important projects possible by throwing in as much free and/or low cost work as I can
manage in order to enable the owner to be able to get the really important things done.
4) 
5) 
6) 
4) Now all the removable boards have been taken off the
piano and their hardware removed. They are now ready to go to the stripper to have
their old varnish or shellac removed. Even the keybed has been removed to make way
for the restringing of the piano. Now, the old strings are being taken off.
First the tension was removed from the strings because of the compromised pin block.
I wanted to get that string tension off as soon as possible. Next, I will measure
the wire sizes to discover the original scale. If the scale is a good one, it will
be reused. Otherwise, it will be remade to a more modern design as needed. The
final decision on just how far we will go with restoration has yet to be made by the
owner. Budget is a concern which will have to be weighed against the piano's current
condition and the owner's goals for the finished product. It is already becoming
apparent at this stage that the sound board is so badly damaged that it cannot be
restored. The bridges are also looking bad but I will wait until I have the strings
all off so that I can examine the bridge pins and clean out the cracks before I make a
final determination. The news isn't all bad; even if we have to replace the sound
board, action and/or bridges, the finished piano will far exceed anything that could be
purchased new for the same amount of money.
5) Recording the scale of the piano. By checking the wire sizes used
originally, I can determine if I can rescale the piano based upon the original scale;
based upon the original with modifications; or if I have to rescale from scratch.
This piano may have to be done from scratch. The original scale design was far from
industry standards so I think I can really improve it.
6)
7) 
8) 
9) 
7) Here, you see that the bottom board has been realigned
and clamped up using fresh hide glue. The old glue joint was done with hide glue so
using fresh hide glue will ensure the best possible bond. The new glue will actually
serve to reactivate what is left of the old glue, thus bringing the old glue back into
functionality as well.
8) All the strings are now off the piano.
9) Doing some measuring on the bass bridge. This bridge is badly designed.
However, the plate is so nicely made that I have lots of room to make changes to
this bass bridge in order to improve the scale dramatically. For instance, the
length of the shortest string on this bass bridge is easily 100mm longer than what you
would find in a Steinway M grand piano. This gives me lots of opportunity to improve
over the original. Since this original bass bridge has been so badly exposed to
moisture, the wood is literally shredding. It will be impossible to reuse this
bridge. As long as I have to make a new bridge, I'm going to go the extra mile and
redesign the bridge to vastly improve the tone production. (Provided, of course,
that the owner gives me the permission I need to proceed.) In this photo, I'm taking
some preliminary measurements and marking the sound board to help me know what my
"wiggle room" will be once the plate is out.
10) 
11) 
12) 
10) Removing the tuning pins.
11) The plate screws have all been removed as have the action mounts and the nose
bolts. These are all kept in order by passing them through a piece of cardboard in
the way they appear in the plate. This arrangement is also useful when it comes time
to clean and lacquer these. The cardboard serves to hold them in place for me.
12) The plate after it has been removed. The fact that the pin block had come
completely unglued could easily have broken the plate. We're very lucky that this
didn't happen.
13) 
14) 
15) 
13) The case with the plate out. Also, the arms which
hold the keybed in place have been removed as well.
14) The pin block was totally unglued from the back of the piano. All it took
was the removal of a few screws that passed through the sound board into the bottom ledge
of the block to have the block fall right out of the piano. The fact that the block
had done this, had also caused the sound board (which was glued to a rabbit placed at the
bottom edge of the block) to break loose years ago. This was the beginning of the
end for this sound board. The piano's condition as I took it apart in the shop
clearly indicated that the sound board had totally died and could never be resurrected.
Unfortunately, the bridges are showing the same indications.
15) A different angle photo to show that the sound board's upper edge is now totally
floating in mid air now that the pin block has been removed.
16) 
17) 
18) 
16) Pulling the pins out of the bridges. This is the
best time to do this job. These pins can be real knuckle busters if you leave them
in. Since they will need to come out in order to make a good pattern for replacement
it is best to remove them now before they can accidentally cut me as I work with the board
and bridges later.
17) The outer case of the piano has now been scraped free of its old shellac
surface.
18) The residue left from the scraping has now been dissolved and washed away,
revealing the beauty of this wood. This is a very special variety of mahogany.
I've seen a lot of mahogany over the years but this piano's veneers are showing
signs have having an almost three dimensional character that is positively breathtaking.
I'm looking forward greatly to getting new finish on this and getting it rubbed out
to see just how beautiful it will end up. It is certainly going to be a spectacular
looking instrument. Some of the veneer on the sides of this piano has come unglued.
Happily, this has not been damaged too badly so we will be able to glue it up very
successfully. Little to no veneer is missing or damaged and the actual veneer itself
is quite thick. This will make for an excellent repair to this area.
19) 
20) 
21) 
19) A photo to attempt to highlight why I say the bridges
are not salvageable. You can see the upper section of the treble bridge in this
photo. The cracks are so bad that the bridge is split right in two along the leading
edge of bridge pins.
20) A photo of the bass bridge up close to reveal some of the problems with it.
Due to the direction in which the grain of the bridge cap was run, the wood has
actually shredded over the years. When the new bridge is made, I will ensure that
this sort of damage won't be incurred again because I will vertically laminate the core
and set a thick cap with properly oriented grain.
21) This photo shows the wood which was used to back up the pin block. This is
partly why the pin block failed. Lester cut corners by leaving entire voids in the
core of this area. A complete, solid layer of wood is needed to glue the pin block
to in order to ensure its stability. When I repair this area, I will inset new wood
where the company had left voids to ensure that we get a better glue joint than was
established when the piano was new. The more I look at this piano and how it was
made, I clearly see that Lester had very good tools and designs at their disposal.
However, they cut so many corners in carrying out the construction that the finished
pieces ended up with less than a perfect reputation. It is another indicator of how
important it is to do every aspect of the job very well if you want the final product to
be the best there is. With our new, high end, restoration techniques, I should be
able to make this finished piano rival any Steinway upright of the same vintage.
22) 
23) 
24) 
22) This photo shows another reason for some of the problems
they encountered. The back beams are usually bound to each other with a thick layer
of wood. Instead, they used a thin layer of poplar (visible because it was so well
protected over the years that its original green cast was never oxidized away) to attempt
to bind these together. Then a cover board with a cosmetic beauty but no structural
function was lightly screwed over the back of this. When reassembling this piano, I
intend to heavily glue in a backer board which is more in line with proper high end
construction techniques.
23) It is time to remove the sound board. However, this board is so badly
cracked, I decided it might come out cleaner if I took the time to tape up some of the
worst cracks before I removed it.
24) Once the sound board was out, it became obvious that the pin block and all the
spacer blocks were unglued as well. I light tap with a hammer and chisel saw each
spacer drop right out of the piano. The pin block was so loose, of course, that it
lifted out without any need of a hammer or chisel.
25) 
26) 
27) 
25) Once the spacer blocks were out, it became obvious that
each separate piece of maple that was glued up to form them was also coming unglued.
Another light tap with a hammer, sometimes using a chisel, saw each of the fall
apart with ease. Each piece was carefully indexed and indelibly marked with a
marking punch set. Then the wood was put into a vat of water to soak the old glue
off of them. Once the old glue was softened, it was scraped clean from the wood.
26) In this shot, you see water soaked paper towels wrapped around the glue joint
areas of the support posts and the back and side glue joints of the pin block. Once
the glue had softened, it was scraped clean.
27) After the individual blocks were free of glue residue, a test fit was made to
see how they would glue back together. Sadly, there was enough slight warpage and
such that the joints would not have been perfect. Therefore, each individual block
of maple was taken and jointed. Then, the spacers were glued back together using the
square clamped to the bench as a guide to keeping them aligned as perfectly as possible.
Despite my best efforts, however, the side and face gluing surfaces were not good
enough to hold the pressure of a strung piano after I finished gluing them up.
Therefore, all the reglued spacer assemblies were taken and their gluing surfaces jointed
and squared up. This left the finished spacers too small to fit the piano as they
originally did. In addition, some of the wood used in these spacers was obviously
scab wood which should not have been used at all. Lester actually faced the spacers
in such a way that the ones containing maple pieces which were too small were mated to the
pin block. This meant that the pin block was not getting glued to solid maple over
100% of its surface. I was able to remedy this problem. Because I had to add
additional wood to the spacers in order to get them to the correct dimensions again, I
decided to spin them around so that the surfaces which contained good maple over 100% of
the surface faced the pin block. See photo #30 for how this process went from here.
28) 
29) 
30) 
28) Soaked paper towels are laid over the areas of the piano
which held the glue joint with the sound board. This area is called the
"rastin." Once the glue had softened, it was scraped clean.
29) Drilling out the dowel rods which passed through the ribs into the bridges.
This will make it possible for me to chisel the bridges free from the sound board.
Having the bridges free will make the construction of the clamping cauls for the
new bridges easier.
30) This shows the maple spacer blocks being glued to another board. Once the
glue dried, the spacers were cut apart into their individual pieces again.
31) 
32) 
33) 
31) While the glue set up on the spacers, the next step was
to cut the recesses into the pin block to receive the new delignit material that will
surround the new tuning pins. Before this, I had chosen to run the pin block lightly
through the planer because the time it spent under stress and unglued had caused it to
warp slightly. This planing operation trued up its rear glue joint so that it will
close under lighter clamping pressure. It is best to not need to clamp things too
tightly to get the joint to close otherwise the joint could open up again in the future.
In this photo, the bulk of the material to be removed from the old pin block is
being taken out at the drill press using a forstner bit. All the holes in the maple
of this are makes the removal of the wood with the router alone very hard on the router's
bearings. I prefer to remove the bulk of it this way to spare the router.
32) Special patterns are custom made to fit this piano. These patterns will
guide the router as it finished cutting the recess in the pin block and as the mating
patterns are used to cut out the shape of the delignit inserts that will replace the old
wood. This method makes for the closest fit possible.
33) The glue has dried on the spacers and they have been cut apart. Now
another piece of wood is being glued to one edge of the spacers. Both layers of new
wood couldn't be glued to the spacers at the same time due to the number of clamps needed
to seat the wood properly. There was not enough room to install all the needed
clamps all at the same time.
34) 
35) 
36) 
34) The finished spacers are ready to be glued into the
piano. Because the shape of the piano is not square in this area, special planing
cauls had to be built and installed onto each spacer. This allowed me to run each
spacer through the planer in such a way as to get a tapered surface. The top spacer
is photographed from the side to reveal this tapered effect given to the new wood that was
glued to it. In addition, all the spacers were dry fitted into the piano so that the
glue joints could be checked. Each place that there was an inconsistency in the way
the piano's back posts were shaped, that spacer had to be removed and hand planed so that
it was a perfect fit. All the time these spacers were being fitted, I had to watch
carefully to ensure that I ended up with a total width for the piano which matched the
original width as measured using the original pin block.
35) Gluing the spacers back into the piano. With the way these spacers have
been reglued and repaired, the finished glue up will have better strength than it had when
it was new.
36) The glue up as seen from the front of the piano.
37) 
38) 
39) 
37) Now that the top end of the piano has been reglued, it's
time to pull the bottom end apart and reglue it as well. All the glue joints on this
end have failed as well. In this photo, all the rastin board, binder boards and
spacer blocks have been removed and the old glue is being soaked off the beams.
38) The original rastin board was in very poor condition. Exposure to moisture
over the years had left it soft and easily broken. A new maple board was made to
replace it, you can see the new board shows next to the original in this photo.
39) The original oak binder board which supported the rastin partially as well as
assisting in binding the assembly of the posts and spacers was in terrible condition as
well. It had become brittle and nasty. A new maple replacement was made and is
picture along side the original in this photo.
40) 
41) 
42) 
40) Gluing all the parts of the bottom support structure back into place.
41) The side veneer had also come loose in places (especially near the bottom of the
piano.) While the piano was upside down, I took that opportunity to reglue all that
veneer.
42) The new pin block inserts are temporarily set into place and the plate is
positioned over them now that the entire back frame of the piano is solid once again.
The plate had all its old rotten plate bushings removed and then the plate was used
to mark the locations for all the tuning pins onto the pin block inserts. This will
enable me to drill the pin block out at the bench before gluing the inserts into place
permanently. Bench drilling is preferred because it is better controlled and more
accurate.
View the rest of the project next year. The customer has requested that we delay the completion of the project for personal reasons.
© Copyright 2010 {David Rodgers' Piano Rebuilding}. All Rights Reserved.