Restoration of a Steinway Duo-Art Reproducing Grand for the Schlieter Family
Click on the thumbnails below to see the full sized image. Then click your "back" button to return to this page.
109) 
110) 
111) 
112) 
113) 
114) 
109) Voicing the hammers. This operation requires you to put the action in and
out of the piano many, many times.
110) In the process of reinstalling the Duo-Art mechanism. The blue labels
made a few months ago when the mechanism was removed are helpful in speeding up the
process. It keeps me from having to stop and scratch my head about which parts went
where.
111-112) Two shots of the underside of the piano finished. The rebuilt
mechanism is installed and all the new tubing has been run. Now it's time to set the
piano up in order to regulate the pneumatic stack to the piano's action.
113) Placing the spool box and other "head" components onto the action
assembly. In a Duo-Art piano, you had better be certain that you have all the action
work perfect before you do this part. Once it is done, even the slightest repair to
the action could potentially take an entire day because all of these components may have
to be removed. The problem will only get worse when the action is installed into the
piano. Numerous tubing connections are made after the action is installed requiring
you to remove a great number of screws and tubes in order to remove the action for
servicing.
114) A view of the signal tubes behind the spool box. To level the keys at
this point would require removing all of these tubes, so it pays to be certain that your
happy with the key level before installing this. As with any piano that has been
freshly rebuilt, the action adjustments and key level will take a year or so to completely
stabilize. In the mean time, they will drift in their adjustments. It will be
necessary to go back in about a year and pull all this apart so that the action can be
freshly regulated. After that, it should hold its adjustments quite well for some
time. After about 40 hours of playing in the shop, the action will be pulled again
so that some readjustments can be made before the piano goes home again.
115) 
116) 
115) The action has now made its way back into the piano.
116) All the tubing has been completed above and below the piano. All the
various adjustments were made and the expression device was carefully regulated.
Several times. Now it is simply a matter of playing the piano for hours and hours,
pumping as many different rolls through it as possible. This will help the strings
to settle in and their tone to "bloom." It will also help start the
stabilization process on the action regulation. It also gives me a chance to catch
any errors in the way the unit is performing.
117) 
118) 
119) 
117) The lid is rubbed out using this pneumatic rubbing
machine similar to the units used at the better factories for getting the extra flat
finish. A straight edge is clamped to the board and used to keep the rubbing lines
absolutely straight.
118) The player mechanism has been on and running trouble free for about thirty or
forty hours. Now the action needs to be regulated again. This "playing
in" of the action helps to stabilize it so that this second regulation will hold
nicely for a good long while.
120) 
121) 
122) 
119 - 120) Using special boards, the tubing is all pulled
off the action assembly so that access can be gotten to the capstan screws and also the
undersides of the keys. The playing in period had caused the key level to settle a
bit as well as other setting to drift. Now the player's upper assembly needs to come
off so that the action can get a proper touch up to the regulation.
121 - 122) The cabinet is being reassembled.
123) 
124) 
125) 
123 - 125) These are pictures of the finished piano. I apologize to all of you that these final images can't be in truly close detail with excellent resolutions. A digital camera can only do so much. Hopefully, I'll be able to post a good 35mm picture of this piano sitting in the owners home after it is delivered.
126) 
127) 
126) This picture was intended to show the reflective fall
board. The digital camera didn't really do it justice, plus it showed up the little
bit of dust still on the lid more than it actually appears in real life.
127) The completed piano is ready to deliver. As it is packed, each part will
get a good dusting and then another as it is unpacked in the customer's home.
128) 
129) 
128) The finished piano comes home.
129) The owners pose with their newly restored instrument.
© Copyright 2010 {David Rodgers' Piano Rebuilding}. All Rights Reserved.