Restoration of a Steck Duo-Art for Rev. Jason Menagh
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1) The piano before work began.
2) The old cover has been removed to reveal the mechanism. Since the old cover
is not needed for making the new one and since it was not in mint condition, the cover was
thrown away. What we see revealed is a Duo-Art mechanism which was still playing.
Upon careful inspection you can see that much of the tubing has been replaced by
the wrong type of tubing. Also, all the original pneumatic cloth and pouch leather
pneumatic coverings are still in one piece. They certainly were leaking but not
extremely. However, just gentle pressure with your finger on the cloth shows its
true condition since your finger passes right through it even though it looks good upon
first glance. This is a lesson to be learned by everyone concerning buying player
pianos. Just because the mechanism looks to be in good shape doesn't mean that it
is. The owner expressed a concern that the piano played but it was troublesome and
the expression was increasingly disappointing. This could have been predicted by a
careful inspection of the true condition of the various components.
3) The under piano components of the player mechanism have been removed.
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4) Here, you see some of the player mechanism after being
removed from the piano. The keybed portions are yet to be removed. One piece
of good news for the owner is that this mechanism turns out to be a later model.
Aeolian had already stopped using their troublesome cross valve seats. This
mechanism has standard round valve seats. This just saved us several hundred dollars
because these seats will not have to be replaced.
5) Now the piano has been placed back on its legs so that the next stage of
disassembly can be completed.
6) The actions on Duo-Art pianos are notoriously difficult to remove. Many
components must be removed and/or unscrewed to get the actions out. This picture
shows the action with all the player mechanism components which are normally mounted to it
removed. Some testing for what new action parts we want to use has also been
performed. The standard Renner whippen will fit this piano nicely. However,
the owner expressed an interest in achieving a particularly light and responsive action.
The keysticks on all Duo-Arts are on the long side which makes the action feel
somewhat sluggish or "clunky." By using a special "turbo"
whippen, this can be largely compensated for. The trouble is that Renner doesn't
make a turbo version of their standard whippen. However, Tokiwa does make a Renner
clone which has the spring loaded turbo feature. It may be decided to use Tokiwa
whippens although I usually prefer to avoid this brand of parts in favor of Renner.
It is not unlikely that I will have to take time to repin large parts of the new whippen
set since Tokiwa is notorious for bad pinning. However, this will give the owner the
accelerated action he is seeking and is, therefore, a viable alternative. More on
this as the project proceeds.
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7) The piano with the action and all cabinet components
removed.
8) Making a record of the damper lever heights, plate heights, wire scale, and other
pertinent notes which are needed later.
9) Now the plate screws have been removed and placed into a cardboard panel to keep
them in order. This piano was not built originally to the highest standards of
excellence. Here, we see one of the first hidden signs of quality skipping which
effect the finished tone of the piano while not being obvious to potential buyers.
As I removed the plate screws, I noticed that all of them were ever so slightly
bent. This was caused by the fact that Steck didn't fit the pin block to the plate
properly. This led to excess stress being transferred to the screws in a way that
they were not designed to sustain. When the new pin block is made, this will be
corrected.
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10) A photo of the pin block as seen after the plate was
removed. The position of the pin block is carefully set and then patterns made to
determine the exact dimensions of the replacement pin block. The old pin block was
simply floating under the plate. The new block will be a full fit block as found in
Steinway and other high end brands. This photo shows very little black marking on
the leading edge of the pin block. This is because the block didn't touch the plate
along this area like it should. In fact, they were so out of whack on this that they
had to glue on a thin wood shim in the bass just to try to get the block up against the
plate a little. This is really bad quality control which will definitely be
corrected during this restoration.
11) The gutted piano is now ready to have the sound board removed. All the
plate stand off blocks have been indexed and removed and index holes have been drilled
around the perimeter of the board to help get everything lined up properly when the new
board goes into place.
12) The sound board has been removed. Another flaw of design and quality
showed up here. See the next photo for details.
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13) This is a photo of the sound board after it was removed.
The rastin is the shelf which the sound board glues to. In high end pianos
this shelf is cut into the inner rim of the piano. In the case of this instrument, a
riser board was glued to the inner rim and the sound board glued to the riser. The
glue joint on the riser was weaker between it and the piano than it was between it and the
sound board. This caused the riser to come out with the board. This is a
design technique I've seen in other brands like Estonias. It does not represent the
best quality because the riser design lessens the rigidity of the rim of the piano.
When the rim is made of all maple and the rastin is carved directly into that rim, the
area around the perimeter of the sound board is very rigid indeed. This allows the
vibrations of the sound board to be reflected back into the board better. This
design is less rigid and will, therefore, not reflect vibration as well. When I glue
this riser back into the piano, I'll make every effort to get it more rigid than
originally. The best way to improve this would be to replace this poplar riser with
a new maple one. However, that would be an expensive addition to the project and may
not make enough difference in the tone to justify the expense. It is common,
actually, to find reproducing grands of this type with poplar rims rather than the more
rigid maple. The reason, I assume, is to lessen the weight of the piano by using a
lighter wood. Since reproducers are notoriously heavy anyway, I feel that they would
have done better to use maple. The other concern was cost. These units were
more expensive than their standard grand counterparts and the factories may have been
seeking to reduce costs somewhat in order to make the piano more affordable. Despite
the poplar rim, I feel we can make this piano very nice and certainly nicer than it was
when new.
14) The bridges have been indexed and then removed. Now the old bridge pins
are being removed to make it easier to take a pattern off them for use in making the new
bridges.
15) This is the riser that should never have been part of the design after it was
removed from the sound board. It will have to be cleaned up on both sides and the
piano will also have to be cleaned up. Then this rastin shelf can be glued back into
place. I'll take great care to ensure a good fit and a strong joint on this.
The original installation didn't fit the piano properly and was not reinforced in any
way. That is why the wrong joint gave when I removed the sound board. The
reglue job will be of a much higher order than the original.
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16) Using
wet cloths along the rastin and the riser is an excellent way to dissolve all remaining
glue and remove any remaining bits of sound board from the rastin. This enables me
to use a sharp chisel to lightly scrape away all the residue without harming the wood of
the rastin at all. Since the rastin and riser are both made of poplar, I must be
particularly careful not to damage them.
17) Now, we move on to the action work. These are the damper guide
rails after the old varnish and dirty wood had been sanded away but before the old
bushings were punched out. The next step was to punch the bushings out. By
punching them out rather than drilling them out, I can more readily maintain the shape of
the guide holes. Before new felt is installed, the wood of the rails must be
bleached to chemically neutralize all residue which would discolor the new finish.
Then new lacquer is applied and finally new bushings are installed and clamped into place
with cauls made from #7 bridge pins. This will allow the replacement damper wires to
glide up and down inside the bushings freely without being so free that they aren't able
to quickly damp the strings.
18) The finished damper guide rails after all restoration is complete. I even
cleaned up the tarnish from the screws and gave them a light coat of lacquer to prevent
them from rusting or tarnishing in the future. The clamping cauls will be left in
the bushings until the piano is reassembled. This will ensure that humidity swings
won't effect the bushing felt in such a way as to cause it to change shape enough to
create sticking dampers.
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19) The main action before work began.
20) The stack has been removed and is ready for disassembly.
21) All the old parts have been removed except for guide hammers in each section to
help me get the new hammers aligned properly. Also, one whippen was saved to be used
in double checking my choice of new parts.
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22) The key bushings have been soaked out of their mortises.
Also, the original leather on the back checks has been removed. The under
felts are in good shape but many of the leather coverings had been partially or completely
worn through. It is better to releather these because I feel that the originals will
hold better in the wood of the key than replacements would.
23) New leather is now being stretched over the original under felts. The felt
was in perfect, perfect condition. However, some of the leathers were worn clear
through and others had been thinned considerably. Most of the leathers were in fine
shape. However, rather than have a mismatched batch of leather on these keys by only
replacing those which were obviously worn, I decided to replace all the leather for a
better finished look and function.
24) The new rough cut pin block sits on the bench next to the original. I used
the original as a template to make the new block. The new block has plenty of extra
wood in it so that I will have room for fitting on all four sides.
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25) Now that the block has been fitted perfectly to the
plate and all the holes in the plate have been marked onto the block, the pin block is
being drilled out.
26) Using the templates made earlier, the pin block is being marked for cutting out.
The joints that fit into the wood of the case are cut to exact size and jointed for
a good glue bond.
27) On all Duo-Art pianos the pin block must have one spot chamfered to make room
for the wind motor. The original block had this done in a somewhat sloppy manner.
It made room all right but it didn't leave any wood for a fit to the stretcher.
Of course, the original pin block did not have any glue joint to the wood stretcher
and, in fact, the leading edge which should have been mated to the plate lip hardly
touched the lip of the plate anywhere. In fact, the joint was so bad that they had
to jam some scraps of wood between the plate and the pin block at the bass just to get the
piano to be tunable. What's more, all the plate screws ended up bent because of
this. No more; this new pin block will be up to the standards of Steinway and Mason
and Hamlin. It fits the plate perfectly and will glue into the piano on the other
three sides. In order to maximize the glue joint near the chamfer, I took great care
to keep the wood I removed to the bare minimum needed.
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28) The original two tone color of the piano was something
the owner wanted preserved. However, keeping the wood bare of any new stain would
have left the color just as sallow looking as it was before stripping. Also, the
stripping process removed most of the color in the darker parts of the two tone finish.
This photo shows the piano after staining. The lighter color was placed over
the entire piano with an aniline dye. This first step was needed to give the piano
some richness and warmth in its color. Second, the darker parts of the two tone
finish were created using a gel stain which was applied carefully by hand to keep it in
just the required areas. 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...
29) Now it is time to get to work on the player mechanism. After a long break
in new photos to post here, I will now have lots of new photos to show. This is the
pneumatic stack which operates the keys of the piano. This photo was taken before
work began. I apologize for the blurry image. My new digital camera is
sometimes difficult to work with.
30) The cover boards have been removed to reveal the inner workings of the stack.
As I began to work on this instrument I became aware of a number of pieces of
history surrounding this unit. Somebody rebuilt this stack before about twenty years
ago, I estimate. The only work they did was to recover the pneumatics. All old
leather gaskets, pouches and valve facings were left untouched. In addition, the
last rebuilder used inappropriate glue to reassemble the system. This made it very
difficult to get the lifter fingers off the pneumatics and to get the pneumatics off the
trunk boards without doing any damage to the trunks. Aeolian originally gasketed the
striking pneumatics with pouch leather. That was back in the day when pouch leather
was cheap. It is no longer cheap. However, we do have a number of excellent
alternatives to pouch leather that can be used to make future restorations easier and more
gentle on the mechanism. We can use construction paper gaskets, split suede leather
which is very cheap or cheese cloth. Any of these would have made the job easier.
Also, the glue that was used was not hot hide glue so it hung on so severely that
heat was the only way to free it and even then some boards were broken getting them off
due to the stubborn nature of the glue used last. This restoration will involve
using established and correct rebuilding techniques which will preserve the mechanism in
the long run rather than simply looking to finding the easiest way to do the job today.