Restoration of a Mason & Hamlin Ampico for David Lucas Graves & John Herrmann
280) 
281) 
282) 
280) In this photo of the pedal mechanism, you can more
readily see the leather bushings and springs that are inside the mechanism causing a more
positive return of the pedals than is otherwise possible with other brands of piano.
281) This is one of the reinforcing boards that goes on the lid. Its purpose
is to prevent the lid from bending and to provide a place for the stick to seat itself
when the lid is up. To prevent unwanted noises, this board is covered with felt on
its underside.
282) The original construction of this lid support bar had the square lid prop
squeezing itself into a round wooden plug. Rather than continue with this inferior
design, I carefully chiseled out a seat for the square end of the stick to match its
shape, size and angles. Then I lined the new inset with leather. Since the
piano came with an after market short brass lid prop attached to the original stick, I put
a new brass cut on this board to hold the short stick. I attempted to set both
retainers so that the lid props are at 90 degrees to the lid when they are in position
hold the lid up.
283) 
284) 
285) 
283) The whippen shown at the top is the new Renner whippen
purchased for this installation. It was the only offering Renner had which fit this
piano to my satisfaction. However, these parts came with individual hammer rest
bumpers. Being an Ampico Reproducer, this piano cannot have these because the hammer
lift rail has to sit in that area to hold the hammers so that the roll can lift the entire
set of hammers for expressive purposes. I was also concerned that the weight of the
action remain as light as I could manage it due to the specific expressed preferences I
have had from this customer. Therefore, I not only cut the bumpers off the whippens
but also thinned out the heals of the whippen to a narrower shape. This shape is
entirely still within the range of whippen shape found in original whippens of this
quality of instrument. Hopefully, these steps to lighten the whippens will cause the
owner to find the piano even more responsive to play than it was originally.
284) The contract calls for the reuse of the damper underlever system.
However, I was very unhappy with the hardened and moth damaged condition of the original
underlever rest felt. This photo shows that felt being replaced.
285) This photo shows all the new action parts in place. All the parts you see
here are made of Hornbeam and come from Renner in Germany.
286) 
287) 
288) 
286) This photo shows me working to sort out the hammer
shanks for stiffness in the joints. None were found that had to be repinned due to
errors at the factory or flaws picked up during storage and transport. But it is
always best to organize the shanks so that the stiffest flange pinnings are at the bass.
This is a durability issue as well as a partial tonal one. The stiffer flange
slightly slows the hammer's rebound from the string. Therefore, any unwanted high
odd partials that may be in the bass strings have a chance of being dampened somewhat by
the hammer. As we go up the scale, this is less and less important and more lightly
pinned parts become more desirable.
287) Using a set of paper towels to control the migration of the water, the keys are
being soaked to remove the last of the old glue and buckram. This method is easier
on the keys. But just to be safe, I pack the new bushings with their original drying
cauls so that they will remain appropriately snug in their glue joints in case any water
migrates into that area. I could remove this material by scraping and sanding but
that is much harder on the key itself so I don't do it that way.
288) The keys after they have been totally cleaned up. The cauls can be seen
underneath. Those are left in at least one full day extra to ensure that they don't
get a bad reaction to errant water in the wood.
289) 
290) 
291) 
289) Using a piece of glass with 180 grit sandpaper wrapped
around it, I am removing any raised grain, stray dots of glue and flattening the surface
of the keys in preparation for the next step.
290) The keys have now had sheets of buckram glued to them. These sheets are
all made in one piece with the front bending over the leading edge and gluing to the front
face. We don't usually need to worry about this with the fronts and the fronts are
almost always reusable. However, after getting this piano to the shop, it became
apparent that the fronts were not glued on well as I had expected. Normally, these
fronts are made of celluloid although some makers occasionally used ivory. Bone will
also work but the best material (if you can get it) is color matched holly cut to thick
veneer. It expands and contracts with the wood in a manner that is more conducive to
durability and it is easier to get an exact color match to the tops. Holly is
actually more expensive to acquire than bone or ivory but it looks great and produces a
vastly better, more beautiful and more durable finish.
291) A shot of the front treble of the action showing many of the new and restored
parts and the Renner sticker of authenticity. In addition to this sticker, Renner is
now stamping all its parts with its logo to prevent Chinese companies from making cheap
parts and passing them off as Renner.
292) 
293) 
294) 
292) Another photo showing all the parts of the Renner
action installed onto the action stack. It will not be possible to fine tune the
positions of the parts and regulate the travel of the shanks or hang the hammers until the
keytops are done. In this way, we can be sure that everything lines up well with the
keys. But before the aligning begins, I must have a decently leveled set of keys in
place to work from. The replacement ivories are being sanded, cleaned, bleached and
pressed to make them very flat. This is all finished but the pieces must sit in the
clamps to let all water escape and the keys to solidify and cure in their correct
flattened condition before gluing them to the keys. We had a plan to put new ivory
on these but I continue to compeer the antique set I am preparing for these to a sample
new key and the grain and color of the restored antiques is vastly better than that of the
sample I have of new ivory. I'm very hopeful that the customer will enjoy the look
and feel of these ivories much more than he ever would have enjoyed new ivory keytops.
293) All grand pianos with single piece fall boards like this one have a heavy
weight screwed into them to counterbalance the cover. This plate is all rusted and
nasty on this piano. Often, I find it unnecessary to work a restoration on this
piece but felt it prudent on this project.
294) This photo shows the metal counterweight removed from the key cover and cleaned
up. Next to it is a strip of soft felt which I will be using in the next photo.
295) 
296) 
297) 
295) By placing this felt into position on the key cover
before screwing the counterweight back into place, I eliminate any chance for the
counterweight to cause aberrant noises that would be hard to track down.
296) Now the cleaned counterweight is back in place.
297) This photo shows the work of restoring the keys. The new fronts have been
installed in this photo. The piano's fronts were originally covered with celluloid
which had gone a grayish brown color (what few that hadn't fallen off completely.)
Rather than replace them with something similar, I upped the ante by using pickled holly
covers. They contain a wood grain look to them that is very similar to ivory.
It took a number of days to convert the block of holly I own into strips and then squares
and then bleaching them and finally pickling them (the process of dyeing the wood white
without erasing the grain) and finally lacquering them and giving them a light wax job
with a nice, tough, durable wax. The finished project feels like silk and yet looks
bright and appropriately creamy white and with grain that is visible upon closer
inspection.
298) 
299) 
300) 
298) A comparison photo of the original celluloid (left) and
a new holly front (right.) The celluloid and ivory/bone all have a habit of
expanding and contracting in ways which fight the natural movement of the keys.
These holly fronts will move with the key in unison resulting in extended durability and
less potential for any problems.
299) The set of replacement ivory used on this piano was gleaned from a stack of
pipe organ console keyboards. The parts were all soaked over night in lab grade
hydrogen peroxide. When completed, they had a whiter and more beautiful look to them
than my samples of new ivory. These finished keytops will definitely look better
than any keyboard made with new ivory ever could.
300) Part of the keyboard with the heads glued into place. You can see the
exposed buckram that is waiting for the tails. The buckram, you may remember, helps
to create a nice white background for the translucent ivory and it also assists in
minimizing potential failure caused by expansion and contraction of the wood and ivory.
301) 
302) 
303) 
301) The finished keyboard. What remains now is to
mount the keys along with the sharps onto the keyframe so that any edges which are not
exactly mated can be smoothed out while maintaining an even visual spacing. This is
best done while you can actually see the spacing as it truly exists on the keyframe.
302) Another angle of the new ivory keyboard.
303) Cleaning up the capo bar so that it is smooth, free of old string marks
and other imperfections.
304) 
305) 
306) 
304) The plate has now been sprayed with new gold paint on the underside
anywhere that one might possibly be able to see that part of the plate even while it is in
the piano as is customary. Then the top of the plate was cleaned very thoroughly
with soap and ammonia.
305) After the plate is freed of old dirt, the entire surface is sanded with
moderately fine sand paper. The care taken in this process is revealed by the fact
that it takes me all day to sand one plate. I take especial care to get into every
corner, nook and cranny. Then the dust is blown off the plate and afterwards a brush
used to get any close corners which the air may have missed. Then the plate is
scrubbed down very thoroughly with a clean tack rag before receiving the first coat of new
lacquer. No matter how much care one uses to clean the plate the first time, that
first coat of lacquer will never be smooth enough to satisfy me although I have seen
pieces out there with rougher feeling jobs than even that which have been strung and sent
back to the owner. After the lacquer has 24 hours to cure, it is sanded with very
fine sand paper and then scrubbed down again with a clean tack rag. This second coat
(if all goes just right) comes out very smooth.
306) This shot was taken between the first and second coats. I took
this time to use abrasive cord to de-burr and polish the inner holes of all the agraffes.
Normally, it is customary to spray the agraffes with the gold lacquer. But I
wash the agraffes with Muriatic Acid which removes all the old dirt and tarnish and brings
me back to fresh, clean brass that just needs a scrubbing with fine steel wool to give it
back its polish.
307) 
308) 
309) 
307) After the gold lacquer has had a few days to get completely cured, I
carefully topcoat it with clear lacquer. This yields a much more professional and
attractive look but is highly tricky. If not enough clear is applied, it will feel
dusty; if too much is applied, it will pull the gold bronzing powder out of the gold
layers and create dark streaks or if it is really too thick, it can even sag. This
is a very precarious balancing act. I have had to start over with gold and try again
before in the past when a plate didn't finish out to my standards of perfection.
Part of the problem is that only one coat can be applied. Any more than that and you
will develop orange peel in the surface making it look like a car's paint job.
After the clear lacquer cured, I epoxied all the duplex and triplex aliquots to the plate
in their original locations which I had marked into the old paint before
resurfacing. This glue is only intended to speed up stringing. This type of
duplex system still slows down stringing considerably but it has the advantage of being
tunable. The epoxy holds the aliquots in place until the string tension and string
positions are generally set. Then a brass punch and small taper can be used to fine
tune the positions of the parts by gently breaking the epoxy and letting you move the
aliquot to where it is truly needed. A basic lining up is done during stringing and
then another change is made after the piano is totally up to pitch and stabilized in order
to bring the duplex and triplex into the correct tuning position for maximum tone
production.
308) Another shot of the finished plate.
309) This shows the style and serial indications having been
replaced. The scale gauges will be applied to the plate in similar fashion.
310) 
311) 
312) 
310) The plate now has to go into the piano twice. The first go is
to set the down bearing. A bar of wood and some spreader clamps are applied to the
bridge to simulate the effects of the string's down bearing. This then lets me
choose felts and nose bolt heights that will arrange the down bearing to just the right
height.
311) Now the bearings are set and a plan for the final screw down of the
plate is in place. The next step is to drill out nicely deep holes in the plate and
cut maple dowels that will fit those holes but will not quite reach the bottom. This
way they have plenty of strength to hold the plate but will not interfere with getting
that plate height correct by accidentally bottoming out when I'm trying to do the final
set of the plate.
312) Mason & Hamlin pianos have an added feature other pianos
don't use. They reinforce the glue joints of the sound board to the rastin with
sound board buttons and screws all around the area under the plate and with a decorative
hard wood quarter round bar screwed down along the straight edge. All of these are
new. I did not try to reuse the original parts since the wood was too old and
brittle for me. It took quite a bit of time to get the straight maple bar fitted to
the plate and to the end block near the tuning pin block which rises above the sound board
but needs to have this bar glued to it. Everything is glued into place using epoxy
wherever possible since these are joints (as in the stand off dowels) that can never be
taken apart again under any circumstances and must be redrilled during a future rebuild so
I go for the more water proof and epoxy which is also open longer; giving me more time to
get everything just right since all the dowels have to be coated with glue at the same
time, placed into the holes and the plate carefully lowered into place and reset in
exactly the right spot for correct down bearing.
313) 
314) 
315) 
313) All the felt which will pass under the strings is now chosen, fitted
and glued to the plate.
314) A close up shot of the tools resting under the felt cabinet
protector ready to start stringing.
315) You can see, in this photo, that the tuning pin web of the
plate is lined with hardwood plate bushings. This piano along with a number of other
brands did not use plate bushings. They left the tuning pins attached to the pin
block only and free from the plate. This makes the pin easier to flex so tuning
feels easier but, in fact, it is just easier to produce an unstable tuning. The
plate bushings increase the strength of the rim/pin block, tuning pin/ plate/string system
and make for better tuning stability. In order to make this possible in this piano,
I had to spend a day drilling out each tuning pin hole in the web a few thousandths larger
to accommodate the bushings. This does not weaken the web enough to be measurable
but, in the end, increases the strength of the overall system significantly. I have
never done this for a customer before but this particular customer is very special since
we have had a number of challenges over the last years and are far behind schedule on this
project. The customer has been very patient and deserves all the special
consideration that it is within my power to grant him.
316) 
317) 
318) 
316) Although all the tuning pins are .282" in diameter, they do
vary throughout the set by about .0005". In this photo, I am measuring each pin
in multiple locations and sorting them out based upon this slight variation. This
helps keep the tuning pins that are next to each other feeling the same to the tuner and
allows me to save the biggest pins for the tightest strings which are in the bass.
317) The stringing process is beginning.
318) Making the paper pattern of the bass scale to be sent off to Ari Isaac
who will be making both the hammers and the bass strings for this very excellent piano.
I use especially thick and dimensionally stable paper for these patterns to ensure
accurate strings in the end.
319) 
320) 
321) 
319) Stringing a piano usually takes me one day. I know of some
stringers who work at the factory level who do nothing but stringing. They can do
two pianos a day or even three. But the aliquot system of this piano in addition to
the fact that a great number of the hitches on the plate require a string to be tied to
them rather than looped around as is usually the case, it took me an entire week to string
just the treble wire onto this piano. If I were not such a stickler for accuracy and
neatness, I could probably pull this type of stringing off faster but I refuse to rush
through something and end up with a compromised result.
320) All the treble wire is in place.
321) Another angle.
322) 
323) 
324) 
322) This is the underside of the music desk. It has arched
recesses in it to permit for a felt or leather pad to be installed. This prevents
the rack from scratching the stretcher rail when it is pulled in and out whilst loaded
down with books.
323) In this photo, you can see the black leather pieces of the previous photo have
been glued into place and tacked down with tacks that are well recessed below the level of
the leather. I chose leather when felt could have been used throughout the cabinet
of this piano. That is, anywhere that leather would serve. In some places,
like the name board, red felt is very traditional and a strip of leather there would look
aberrant. But on the music rack I chose heavy and dense leather since it is stronger
and less prone to wear. When one talks of durability over a period of centuries, it
is not uncommon to find 100 year old felt that is still in good shape as long as it hasn't
been subjected to dirt or abrasion while leather of the same ilk will have dry rotted and
will need to be replaced. So, if one thinks in terms of making parts to last for
over a century, felt is usually your best bet. But where the area will be subjected
to abrasion and possibly to dirt, leather is a far better solution. While it lives
(a period of 50 to 100 years depending on conditions) it will serve better than felt in
specific locations.
324) Cleaning the old felt from the guide rail slots at the edges of the
music rack. The original felt was black with dirt and hardened from use and
exposure. Yet, the glue was in good shape and made for a challenging hours work
getting it all out.
325) 
326) 
327) 
325) This is a very clean, smooth and supple leather with a very muted
color. I use this leather to make valve facings on player pianos it is so fine.
I will be using this leather to replace the old felt bushings on the music desk's
side guide slots.
326) The leather has been cut to size and cauls made to fit the slot and
the edges exactly are clamped into place until the glue has dried.
327) The cheek blocks are finished and their hardware reattached.
Steinway always made the fall board retainers out of brass. In this piano,
those retainers (always attached to the cheek block on Steinway and Mason and Hamlin) are
made of solid ebony. Although they are not as hard as brass, the ebony shows no
signs of wear from the first 100 years of the pianos existence so I don't fear for these
parts during the next hundred.
328) 
329) 
330) 
328) Most pianos (even Steinway) have either rubber headed nails or
rubber buttons with smaller rubber shanks that go into the wood. On this piano, the
major points of connection are made from a felt cored leather circle. The circle is
cut much larger than the finished piece and is then shaped around the felt core.
Then the entire assembly is worked down into the glue coated holes.
329) One of these hand made leather inserts installed into the music rack.
330) The finished rack from behind shows a second
leather button like the one shows in photo 329 as well as the brass hardware that the rack
contains.
331) 
332) 
333) 
331) A shot of the rack from the front showing how nice the leather side
rail bushings look. They have a look and feeling of solidity and dignity to my
thinking which plain felt lacks.
332) This photo is included to show the reader and the owner one of the benefits of
allowing a piano being restored to remain at the shop for a good while. The parts
are never subjected to humidity levels that can't be expected in the customer's home.
Yet, after a number of years in the shop, this board looked great. Its veneer
looked and felt solid and it finished up very nicely. But a few months after being
completed, unanticipated shrinkage occurred in the core wood inside the board. The
result was that the veneer developed hairline cracks along the length of the board.
I don't feel that these cracks are serious enough to worry about but I took a photo and
enhanced it as well as I could to show these cracks as clearly as I could. The only
repair for these would be to plane the defective veneer off of the board (which also means
removing the isolation felt that is between the board and the lid) and reveneer the board
with fresh mahogany. Then color would be matched, the wood filled and
lacquered. Time needed for entire repair to be completed and ready for shipment
about six months. The final problem with correcting these hairline cracks is patina.
Even though the wood I work with on these pianos is well sanded and stained with
good materials all the way, there is a certain patina to old wood that cannot be
completely duplicated in a new piece of wood. The color can be matched but there is
a certain undefinable aspect to the look of the wood that screams "I'm a
repair." If the customer wishes to have this board redone with new veneer, he
should let me know. Otherwise, I will continue to finish the piano and not worry
about this board. The cracks caused by the core wood are not all that significant
and can always be repaired as described later if the situation ever gets worse since the
board is readily accessible even when the piano is completely finished.
333)
334) 
335) 
336) 
334) The entire under side of the lid showing that the special felt cored
leather buttons are used here as well.
335) A quick preview of the finished piano done by putting the lid down flat on the
piano. I really put the lid down like this so that the leather cushions would dry up
in a semi-flattened state in order to ensure proper dimensions and gaps around the lid
when finished.
336)
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